LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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YALE  LECTURES  ON  THE 
RESPONSIBILITIES  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


AMEEIOAN  CITIZENSHIP 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


YALE  LECTURES 


BY 

DAVID  J.  BEEWER 

ASSOCIATE  JUSTICE  OF  THE  SUPREME  COURT 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER^S  SONS 

1902 


Copyright,  1902,  by 
YALE  UNIVEKSITY 

Published,  April,  1902 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


In  May,  1900,  Honorable  William  E.  Dodge, 
of  Hew  York,  made  provision  for  lectures  be¬ 
fore  the  students  of  Yale  University,  to  be 
known  as  the  ^^Yale  Lectures  on  the  Kespon- 
eibilities  of  Citizenship  ”  and  to  be  on  a 
topic  whose  understanding  will  contribute  to 
the  formation  of  an  intelligent  public  senti¬ 
ment,  of  high  standards  of  the  duty  of  a  Chris¬ 
tian  citizen,  and  of  habits  of  action  to  give 
effect  to  these  sentiments  and  these  standards.” 

Having  been  honored  by  selection  to  deliver 
the  first  course  of  these  lectures  I  have  felt  that 
it  was  fitting  to  present  a  few  plain,  simple, 
commonplace  truths  in  respect  to  those  respon¬ 
sibilities,  thus  laying,  as  it  were,  a  foundation 
upon  which  succeeding  lecturers  might  in  a 
more  ambitious  way  develop  some  particular 
form  of  responsibility,  or  some  particular  ap¬ 
peal  to  noble  action.  With  this  in  view  I  have 
prepared  the  following  lectures. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  Obligations  of  Citizenship  ....  3 

II.  The  Maintenance  of  a  Good  Char¬ 
acter  A  Primary  Obligation  of 
Every  Citizen . 


III.  Service  a  Responsibility  of  Citizen¬ 
ship  . 

IV.  Obligation  of  Obedience  .  .  .  . 


61 

85 


V.  The  Duty  of  Striving  to  Better 

THE  Life  of  the  Nation  ....  107 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


'■■i 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


I 

OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 

Out  of  all  the  relations  into  which  human 
beings  enter,  or  are  brought,  there  spring  obli¬ 
gations — obligations  resting  upon  each  party  to 
the  relationship,  yet  varying  in  the  specific 
duties  imposed  with  the  character  of  the  re¬ 
lationship  and  the  place  each  occupies  therein. 

In  many  relationships  the  existence  of  obli¬ 
gations  is  obvious  and  universally  recognized. 
In  others  the  fact  of  obligation  is  not  always 
conceded,  frequently  not  appreciated,  and  not 
infrequently  ignored.  Thus,  no  one  doubts 
that  when  man  and  woman  enter  into  the  mar¬ 
riage  relation  certain  obligations  are  thereby 
imposed  upon  each.  All  recognize  that  there 
immediately  springs  up  and  continues  during 
the  existence  of  that  relation  a  mutuality  of 

obligation,  although  the  character  of  the  duties 

3 


4 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


imposed  upon  each  by  virtue  thereof  may  be 
different.  A  business  partnership  creates,  as 
all  readily  perceive  and  acknowledge,  certain 
obligations  on  the  part  of  each  to  the  other. 
A  distinct  disregard  by  either  party  to  a  mar¬ 
riage,  or  by  either  member  of  a  partnership,  of 
the  obligations  created  by  such  relationship  re¬ 
ceives  general  condemnation. 

There  are  other  relationships,  not  so  close 
and  intimate,  which  also  cast  obligations  upon 
each  party  thereto,  and  yet  the  fact  and  sig¬ 
nificance  of  those  obligations  often  make  little 
impression  on  the  parties  bound  thereby.  We 
owe  certain  duties  to  our  neighbors,  but  upon 
how  many  of  us  the  burden  of  those  duties  rests 
lightly  or  is  wholly  forgotten?  In  a  general 
way  we  say  that  we  ought  to  be  neighborly,  and 
yet  too  often  all  that  we  do  is  to  let  our  neigh¬ 
bors  alone,  and  ask  them  to  let  us  alone.  Who 
is  our  neighbor  ?  is  a  frequent  question.  The 
Great  Teacher  answered  it  in  the  story  of  the 
Good  Samaritan,  as  the  one  we  meet  in  life 
whom  we  can  help  and  do  help.  It  may  also 
be  affirmed  that  there  is  one  universal  relation- 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


5 


ship  in  that  we  are  all  members  of  one  great 
human  family,  and  that  out  of  that  relation¬ 
ship  spring  obligations  which  no  right-thinking 
man  will  ignore.  It  was  a  noble  utterance  of 
the  ancient  Eoman,  nihil  humanum  mihi 
alienum  est.” 

As  I  stated,  the  mere  fact  of  relationship  car¬ 
ries  obligations,  and  it  matters  not  whether 
that  relationship  is  one  voluntarily  entered 
into,  or  one  in  which  we  are  placed  without  our 
consent.  Marriage  is  a  relation  voluntarily 
entered  into.  On  the  other  hand,  a  child  is 
born  into  a  family,  and  without  its  consent  the 
relation  of  child  to  parent  is  established,  and 
yet  none  the  less  do  obligations  spring  from 
that  relationship.  We  are  not  only  born  into 
families  but  also  into  citizenship  in  a  nation, 
and  so  long  as  the  relationship  springing  out 
of  that  birth  continues  there  are  obligations 
resting  upon  us  as  citizens  which  cannot  be 
ignored.  These  obligations  are  the  responsibili¬ 
ties  of  citizenship. 

One  may  at  the  same  time  be  subject  to  many 
relationships,  and  sometimes  the  obligations 


6 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


springing  out  of  those  different  relationships 
apparently  antagonize  each  other.  One  may 
be  under  a  relationship  of  marriage,  of  part¬ 
nership,  of  parent,  of  citizen,  and  the  varied 
duties  springing  from  those  several  relation¬ 
ships  may  seem  to  conflict.  He  may  have  to 
determine  which  carries  the  higher  obligation; 
but  the  possibility  of  conflict  does  not  alter  the 
fact  that  there  are  duties  springing  from  each 
of  those  relationships. 

Again,  many  of  the  obligations  which  spring 
from  the  relationships  of  life  are  not  enforcible 
by  human  law  or  the  decrees  of  a  court.  They 
are  called  imperfect  obligations  because,  as  said 
with  gentle  satire,  law  which  is  the  perfection 
of  reason  takes  no  notice  of  them.  They  are 
cognizable  only  in  the  forum  of  conscience. 
But  ofttimes  they  are  felt  to  be  the  most 
sacred,  and  this  partly  because  they  appeal 
alone  to  the  higher  element  in  our  nature  and 
have  no  sanction  in  exterior  force.  Take  the 
relation  of  parent  and  child.  Municipal  law 
enforces — perhaps  not  always  satisfactorily — 
at  any  rate  it  attempts  to  enforce  the  obliga- 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


7 


tion  of  the  parent  to  care  for  the  minor  child. 
It  is  certainly  one  of  those  obligations  which 
the  law  recognizes,  no  matter  how  poorly  it 
may  succeed  in  its  enforcement;  but  when  the 
child  has  arrived  at  maturity  and  the  parent 
passed  into  the  weakness  of  old  age  then  that 
high  moral  obligation  which  rests  upon  the 
child  to  care  for  the  failing  parent  is  one 
which  the  law  does  not  recognize  or  attempt  to 
enforce.  "  Over  the  hill  to  the  poorhouse 
expresses  the  imperfection  of  human  law,  and 
yet  to  every  right-thinking  person  the  obliga¬ 
tion  to  care  for  the  aged  parent  is  as  sacred  as 
any.  No  sweeter  picture  in  life  can  be  seen 
than  that  of  son  or  daughter  who,  in  memory 
of  corresponding  care  in  days  of  infancy,  toils 
through  the  years  of  manhood  or  womanhood 
to  care  for  the  parent  in  the  failing  strength  of 
old  age.  Take  another  illustration:  One  obli¬ 
gation  of  husband  and  wife  to  each  other  is  that 
of  helpfulness  and  courtesy.  But  if  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  either  to  the  other  only  comes  short 
of  cruelty  the  law  takes  no  notice  of  it.  Still 
who  does  not  feel  that  the  inability  or  inatten- 


8 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


tion  of  the  law  detracts  in  no  degree  from  the 
sacredness  of  this  obligation?  Even  the  very- 
much  neglected  courtesies  called  for  by  the 
temporary  relationship  of  fellow-passengers  in 
a  street-car  are  in  the  truest  and  highest  sense 
duties,  and  duties  whose  faithful  discharge  car¬ 
ries,  like  virtue,  its  own  reward.  Indeed,  may 
I  not  stop  to  say  that  among  the  things  which 
make  for  the  sweetness  and  real  glory  of  one’s 
life  is  a  keen  recognition  of  those  obligations 
which  are  outside  the  domain  of  law. 

Again,  a  fact  worthy  of  notice  in  respect  to 
all  obligations  is  that  the  more  perfectly  one 
discharges  them  the  greater  the  blessings  which 
come  from  the  relationship  out  of  which  they 
spring.  The  mother  who  is  most  faithful  to 
the  child  during  its  early  days  finds  in  the 
future  years  of  its  life  the  highest  reward  of 
motherhood.  ''These  are  my  jewels,”  cried 
the  mother  of  the  Gracchi.  The  ripened  man¬ 
hood  and  womanhood  of  her  children  become 
her  crown  of  joy  and  rejoicing,  and  their  affec¬ 
tion  and  tender  care  are  the  sweetest  comfort 
that  a  mother  ever  knows.  A  partner  who  is 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


9 


most  faithful  to  his  partnership  obligations 
will  find  that  partnership  most  fruitful  of  re¬ 
sult.  The  neighbor  who  is  most  neighborly 
feels,  as  no  one  else,  the  blessing  of  being  and 
having  a  neighbor.  And  yet  it  is  one  of  the 
paradoxes  of  life  that  in  order  to  attain  the 
full  blessings  of  a  discharge  of  obligation,  such 
discharge  must  not  be  with  a  thought  of  pur¬ 
chase,  with  the  hope  of  compensation,  but  from 
the  pure  sense  of  obligation.  You  cannot  se¬ 
cure  the  great  rewards  of  life  by  working  for 
them.  There  is  an  unfailing  truth  in  the 
declaration,  he  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose 
it  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  save  it.” 
Duty  done  because  it  is  duty  carries  the  crown 
and  the  laurel.  Indeed,  there  is  no  more  mag¬ 
nificent  word  in  the  English  language  than 
duty.”  As  Whittier  says : 

“  There’s  life  alone  in  duty  done, 

And  rest  alone  in  striving.  ’  * 

The  existence  of  relationship,  at  least  in 
cases  in  which  both  parties  are  competent  to 
act  intelligently,  carries  with  it  a  mutuality  of 


10 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


obligation.  The  husband,  by  virtue  of  the  re¬ 
lationship  of  marriage,  owes  certain  duties  to 
the  wife.  Conversely,  the  wife  owes  duties  to 
the  husband.  The  mere  fact  of  the  relation¬ 
ship  imposes  obligations  on  each.  So,  in  the 
case  of  parent  and  child,  as  soon  as  the  child 
comes  to  an  age  of  understanding  there  is  a 
measure  of  obligation  resting  upon  him  to  the 
parent,  as  well  as  upon  the  parent  to  him. 
Now,  the  fact  that  either  party  to  a  relation¬ 
ship  may  wholly  ignore  the  obligations  created 
thereby  does  not  necessarily  release  the  other 
from  the  performance  of  his  duties.  Indeed, 
sometimes  the  dereliction  of  the  one  seems  to 
increase  or  at  least  emphasize  the  duty  of  the 
other.  There  is  often  the  not  unreasonable  ex¬ 
pectation  that  greater  faithfulness  on  the  part 
of  the  one  will  renew  the  neglected  fidelity  of 
the  other.  Take  the  familiar  example  of  hus¬ 
band  and  wife.  Delinquency  on  the  part  of 
one  does  not  excuse  the  other  from  fidelity. 
It  may  be  that  no  rule  can  be  stated  which 
will  fit  all  cases,  and  yet  the  possibility  of 
restoring  the  helpfulness  of  the  relation  and 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


11 


re-establishing  the  sense  of  duty  on  the  part  of 
the  delinquent  is  always  to  be  considered. 
Who  can  number  the  multitude  of  cases  in 
which  an  increased  fidelity  on  the  part  of  one 
has  brought  the  other  back  to  a  sense  of  duty  ? 
Indeed,  such  restoration  is  not  infrequently  a 
blessed  result  of  duty  done.  It  is  obviously  a 
case  of  salvage.  Every  one  familiar  with  Ad¬ 
miralty  knows  that  the  compensation  in  such 
cases  is  large  and  generous,  and  so  the  salvage 
which  one  party  to  any  relationship  in  life 
ought  to  receive  and  does  receive  on  the  restora¬ 
tion  of  the  other  through  his  or  her  increased 
fidelity,  is  among  the  great  compensations  of 
life.  He  that  saveth  a  soul  from  death  shall 
hide  a  multitude  of  sins. 

While  all  relationships  impose  obligations  on 
the  parties  thereto,  the  character  and  force  of 
those  obligations  vary  with  the  nature  of  the 
relationship.  Some  are  stronger  and  more  im¬ 
portant  than  others;  some  more  continuous  in 
their  force,  and  some  the  performance  of  which 
affects  a  larger  number  of  persons.  In  order, 
therefore,  to  a  full  understanding  of  the  scope 


12 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


and  significance  of  such  obligations  it  is  not 
enough  to  determine  the  fact  of  a  relationship ; 
it  is  necessary  to  inquire  into  its  nature  and 
conditions,  and  consider  whether  it  is  mainly 
personal,  or  one  directly  or  indirectly  affecting 
many. 

With  these  preliminary  observations,  I  pass 
on  to  say  that  among  the  relationships  in  life 
out  of  which  spring  obligations  is  that  of  the 
individual  to  the  nation  or  tribe  of  which  he  is 
a  citizen  or  member.  And  here  I  start  with 
the  broad  proposition  that  whatever  may  be  the 
position,  capacity,  or  surroundings  of  the  in¬ 
dividual,  and  whatever  may  be  the  character  of 
his  nation  or  tribe,  or  its  fidelity  to  its  corre¬ 
sponding  obligations,  he  is  always  under  obli¬ 
gations  to  that  nation  or  tribe.  A  member  of 
the  most  savage  tribe  in  the  centre  of  Africa 
owes  certain  duties  to  it  and  to  its  chief,  and 
the  same  is  true  of  the  citizen  of  the  most  civ¬ 
ilized  nation  in  the  world.  While  there  is  a 
similarity  in  the  nature  of  those  obligations, 
yet  it  is  clear  that  their  significance  and  reach 
vary  largely  with  the  conditions  in  which  the 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


13 


individual  is  placed  and  the  character  of  the 
tribe  or  nation  to  which  he  belongs.  Contrast, 
for  instance,  the  obligations  of  an  uneducated 
savage  to  his  tribe  with  those  of  the  President 
of  Yale  University  to  the  United  States. 
There  may  be  like  duty  of  service  and  obedi¬ 
ence,  and  yet  the  obligations  in  the  one  case 
are  much  more  important  and  far-reaching 
than  in  the  other,  and  of  greater  significance 
to  the  individual  and  to  the  race.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  proposition  that 
the  higher  the  status  of  the  two  parties  to  any 
relationship  the  more  far-reaching  are  the 
obligations  which  spring  therefrom,  and  the 
more  significant  and  important  is  the  full  dis¬ 
charge  of  those  obligations.  The  manner  in 
which  the  citizen  of  a  savage  tribe  discharges 
his  obligations  to  that  tribe,  whether  well  or 
ill,  means  less  for  the  general  weal  or  woe  than 
the  way  in  which  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
discharges  his  obligations.  And  it  is  because 
in  the  one  case  the  parties  to  the  relationship 
are  of  more  importance  to  the  well-being  of  the 
world  than  those  in  the  other. 


14 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


Of  all  the  obligations  of  citizen  to  nation 
none  is  greater  than  those  of  one  of  our  citizens 
to  the  Republic.  The  responsibilities  of  citi¬ 
zenship  are  nowhere  more  sacred  and  solemn. 
To  impress  this  truth  is  the  purpose  of  these 
lectures.  Let  me  notice  some  of  the  facts 
which  justify  the  assertion.  First,  this  Re¬ 
public  occupies  a  unique  and  prominent  posi¬ 
tion  among  the  nations.  It  may  be  there  are 
other  nations  with  more  territory  or  popula¬ 
tion,  larger  military  and  naval  forces,  a  greater 
accumulation  of  wealth,  or  a  longer  history, 
but  not  one  whose  history  has  been  more 
significant,  in  whose  present  the  world  is  more 
interested,  and  above  whose  future  there  spans 
a  brighter  rainbow  of  hope  and  promise  for 
humanity.  This  is  a  government  of  and  by 
and  for  the  people.  It  rests  upon  the  thought 
that  to  each  individual  belong  the  inalienable 
rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap¬ 
piness.  It  affirms  that  the  nation  exists  not 
for  the  benefit  of  one  man,  or  set  of  men, 
but  to  secure  to  each  and  all  the  fullest  op¬ 
portunity  for  personal  development.  It  stands 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


15 


over  against  the  governments  of  the  Old  World 
in  that  there  the  thought  is  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual  lives  for  the  nation;  here^  that  the  na¬ 
tion  exists  for  the  individual.  It  was  estab¬ 
lished  in  a  place,  at  a  time,  and  under  circum¬ 
stances  peculiarly  unique  and  fortunate — con¬ 
ditions  which  can  never  be  repeated,  and  if  the 
effort  here  made  to  establish  popular  govern¬ 
ment  fails  we  may  well  believe  that  the  failure 
will  be  final  and  irretrievable.  As  Webster 
said:  If,  in  our  case,  the  representative  sys¬ 
tem  ultimately  fails,  popular  governments 
must  be  pronounced  impossible.  No  combina¬ 
tion  of  circumstances  more  favorable  to  the  ex¬ 
periment  can  ever  be  expected  to  occur.  The 
last  hopes  of  mankind,  therefore,  rest  with  us; 
and  if  it  should  he  proclaimed  that  our  example 
had  become  an  argument  against  the  experi¬ 
ment,  the  knell  of  popular  liberty  would  be 
sounded  throughout  the  earth.’^ 

It  was  established  by  the  most  earnest  and 
resolute  men  of  the  most  virile  races  the  world 
has  ever  developed.  The  place  was  a  new  con¬ 
tinent,  separated  by  three  thousand  miles  of 


16 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


boisterous  ocean  from  the  nations  and  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  the  Old  World,  at  a  time  when  the 
peoples  and  the  nations  of  that  world  were 
beginning  to  be  moved  by  forces  which  soon 
involved  all  of  them  in  prolonged  conflict. 
They  who  formed  the  Eepublic  were  too  few 
in  number  and  too  poor  in  resources  to  ap¬ 
peal  very  strongly  to  the  greed  of  the  distant 
monarchs.  They  were  by  themselves  and  they 
were  left  to  themselves.  Their  leaders  were 
men  of  clear  conviction,  resolute  and  conscien¬ 
tious.  They  were  not  blind  to  the  lessons  of 
the  past  and  they  had  unswerving  faith  in 
the  possibilities  of  the  future.  They  were  rea¬ 
sonable  radicals  and  progressive  conservatives. 
They  were  not  dazzled  by  power  or  glory  or 
wealth.  Coming  here  under  the  impulse  of 
strong  convictions  they  meant  to  establish  the 
best  home  for  man  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Thus  situated  and  thus  protected  the  Eepub¬ 
lic  grew  in  numbers  and  wealth  until  it  be¬ 
came  strong  enough  to  resist  the  attack  of  any 
nation,  and  now  is  so  strong  as  to  be  a  recog¬ 
nized  leader  among  the  nations.  It  has  blazed 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


17 


the  way  for  popular  government.  Other  na¬ 
tions  have  followed  in  its  footsteps  and  estab¬ 
lished  like  governments.  Yet  none  has  become 
its  equals  something  has  always  been  lacking. 
Either  while  the  form  has  been  Eepublican  the 
substance  has  been  despotism,  or  else  the  people 
have  had  no  respect  for  the  form.  Elections, 
instead  of  being  settlements  securing  stability 
of  rulers  and  confirming  matters  of  policy  for 
stated  periods,  have  been  simply  invitations  to 
revolution,  while  neither  life  nor  property  has 
been  sacred. 

Far  be  it  for  me  to  affirm  that  we  have  lived 
up  to  our  ideals.  I  am  making  no  Fourth  of 
July  speech.  On  the  contrary,  our  history  has 
disclosed  many  shortcomings.  We  have  not 
been  free  from  the  weaknesses  of  human  nat¬ 
ure.  But,  notwithstanding  all  our  failures, 
nowhere  has  there  been  a  closer  living  to  the 
ideals  of  popular  government,  and  nowhere  are 
the  possibilities  of  future  success  greater.  If, 
therefore,  the  chief  object  of  national  existence 
is  to  secure  to  each  individual  the  fullest  pro¬ 
tection  in  all  inalienable  rights  and  the  fullest 


18 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


opportunity  for  personal  advancement,  and  if 
this  nation  has  come  nearer  than  any  other  to 
the  realization  of  this  ideal,  and  if  by  virtue  of 
its  situation,  its  population,  its  development,  it 
has  the  greatest  promise  of  a  full  realization  of 
this  ideal  in  the  future,  surely  it  must  be  that 
the  obligations  of  its  citizens  to  it  are  nowhere 
surpassed. 

Again,  the  significance  of  the  responsibilities 
of  citizenship  in  this  Republic  also  appears  in 
the  fact  that  here  each  man  is  a  ruler.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  where  there  is  a  single  ruler, 
whether  the  chieftain  of  a  savage  tribe  or  the 
monarch  of  a  civilized  nation,  the  duty  of  that 
ruler  to  his  tribe  or  nation  is  one  of  supreme 
importance.  Its  welfare  depends  largely  upon 
his  actions,  and  as  so  much  rests  upon  his  ac¬ 
tions  by  just  so  much  is  increased  his  duty  of 
rendering  the  best  service.  The  pure  and 
noble  life  of  Queen  Victoria  has  exalted  the 
British  nation.  How,  government  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  that  government  which  exists  among  us, 
means  that  each  man  is  a  ruler ;  each  shares  the 
responsibility  of  government.  And  if  each 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


19 


man  is  a  ruler  then  upon  each  rests  the  obliga¬ 
tion  of  a  ruler.  That  there  are  many  rulers 
may  diminish  the  effect  of  the  separate  action 
of  any  single  one^  hut  it  does  not  change  the 
fact  that  upon  each  rests  the  obligation  of 
ruler.  Upon  him  lies  the  burden  of  govern¬ 
ment.  As  he  acts  so  the  nation  acts.  And 
there  is  no  man  in  this  country  who  can  say  he 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  action  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  Le  Grand  IMonarque,  in  the  arro¬ 
gance  of  his  power^  is  said  to  have  exclaimed. 
The  State !  I  am  the  State.^’  With  him  the 
thought  was  that  the  whole  purpose  and  life  of 
the  State  centred  in  himself.  In  a  different 
but  equally  true  and  a  far  nobler  sense  every 
American  can  say,  The  Nation !  I  am  the 
Nation.’’  And  that  fact  of  personal  responsi¬ 
bility,  that  sense  of  governmental  duty,  gives 
strength  and  importance  to  the  responsibilities 

of  the  American  citizen. 

Still  again,  this  is  a  Christian  nation.  Not 
that  the  people  have  made  it  so  by  any  legal 
enactment  or  that  there  exists  an  established 
church,  but  Christian  in  the  sense  that  the 


20 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


dominant  thought  and  purpose  of  the  nation 
accord  with  the  great  principles  taught  by  the 
founder  of  Christianity.  Historically  it  has 
developed  along  the  lines  of  that  religion.  Its 
first  settlements  were  in  its  name,  and  while 
every  one  is  welcome,  whether  a  believer  in 
Christianity  or  in  any  other  religion,  or  in  no 
religion,  yet  the  principles  of  Christianity  are 
the  foundations  of  our  social  and  political  life. 
It  needs  no  judicial  decision  to  determine  this 
fact.  The  commission  to  Columbus  was  from 
“  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
king  and  queen  of  Castile,”  and  recited  that 
“  it  is  hoped  that  by  God’s  assistance  some  of 
the  continents  and  islands  in  the  ocean  will  be 
discovered.”  The  first  colonial  grant  from  the 
crown  of  England,  in  1584,  authorizing  the 
grantee  to  enact  statutes,  provided  that  ^'they 
be  not  against  the  true  Christian  faith  now  pro¬ 
fessed  in  the  church  of  England.”  The  first 
charter  of  Virginia,  in  1606,  recited  that  it  was 
granted  in  hopes  of  the  ‘^propagating  of  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  to  such  people  as  yet  live  in  dark¬ 
ness  and  miserable  ignorance  of  the  true  knowl- 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


21 


edge  .and  worship  of  God.”  The  Mayflower 
compact  declared  that  its  colonial  settlement 
was  for  the  glory  of  God  and  for  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  the  Christian  faith.”  The  fundament¬ 
al  orders  of  Connecticut  recited  that  they  were 
established  to  maintain  and  preserve  the  lib¬ 
erty  and  the  purity  of  the  gospel  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  which  we  now  profess.”  Running 
through  other  colonial  charters,  in  the  Declara¬ 
tion  of  Independence,  in  the  Constitutions  of 
the  various  States,  in  the  proceedings  in  courts, 
and  in  those  official  declarations  which  are  the 
manifestations  of  the  organized  will  of  the  na¬ 
tion,  there  is  the  constant  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  Christianity  is  the  underlying  thought 
of  our  national  life. 

It  is  in  that  sense  as  truly  a  Christian  nation 
as  is  England  with  its  Established  Church,  or 
as  is  Turkey  a  Mohammedan  nation  with  the 
Koran  as  its  officially  declared  sacred  book. 
Indeed,  the  very  fact  that  it  has  no  Established 
Church  makes  one  of  its  highest  credentials  to 
the  title  of  a  Christian  nation.  The  great 
thought  of  the  Master  was  that  over  the  human 


22 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


soul  there  was  no  earthly  sovereign.  There  is 
no  truth  which  shines  more  clearly  through  the 
gospels  and  the  epistles  than  that  of  the  inde¬ 
pendence  of  the  human  soul.  In  that  great 
forum  where  are  settled  the  destinies  of  time 
and  eternity  each  one  stands  alone  with  his 
conscience.  Work  out  your  own  salvation 
with  fear  and  trembling.^^  That  nation  which 
seeks  to  enforce  or  support  a  religion  by  legis¬ 
lative  enactment  fails  to  recognize  the  immor¬ 
tal  truth  contained  in  the  Master’s  words, 
my  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.”  The  very 
tolerance  which  some  over-sensitive  people 
deprecate  is  one  of  the  best  evidences  that  in 
the  framing  of  our  Constitution  and  the 
foundation  of  our  nation  there  was  recognized 
that  truth  which  underlies  Christianity,  to- wit, 
that  love  not  law  is  the  supreme  thing.  We 
enforce  no  religion;  but  the  voice  of  the  nation 
from  its  beginning  to  the  present  hour  is  in 
accord  with  the  religion  of  Christ.  Now, 
whatever  else  may  be  said  of  Christianity  one 
thing  is  undisputed  and  indisputable — that 
Christian  nations  manifest  the  highest  forms  of 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


23 


civilized  life,  and  that  among  professedly 
Christian  nations  those  in  which  the  principles 
of  Christianity  have  the  utmost  freedom  and 
power  occupy  the  first  place.  And  surely  no¬ 
where  has  Christianity  such  freedom  and  power 
as  in  this  Republic. 

We  have,  therefore,  a  nation  which  gives  to 
each  citizen  the  most  of  liberty  and  affords  the 
best  field  for  his  development,  which  casts  upon 
each  the  responsibility  of  a  ruler,  and  one  in 
which  that  religion,  whose  principles  are  most 
potent  in  the  perfection  of  human  civilization, 
has  the  largest  freedom  and  power.  Is  it 
strange,  therefore,  that  this  nation  is  the  one 
around  which  the  hopes  of  humanity  cluster? 
Its  continuance,  its  growth,  its  perfection, 
mean  the  most  for  the  race.  Does  it  not  fol¬ 
low  that  upon  its  citizens  rest  the  most  solemn 
responsibilities  of  citizenship? 

But  further,  special  dangers  and  difficulties 
attend  the  development  of  the  Republic;  dan¬ 
gers  and  difficulties  which  grow  out  of  the  very 
peculiarities  of  its  national  life,  and  in  the  so¬ 
lution  of  which  each  individual  is  a  real  and 
potent  factor. 


24 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


In  the  first  place,  there  are  no  restraints 
upon  popular  action  except  such  as  the  citi¬ 
zens  themselves  have  imposed,  and  there  is  the 
ever-present  danger  that,  conscious  that  these 
restraints  are  self-imposed,  the  people  in  some 
time  of  passion  will  disregard  them — break 
down  the  constitutional  compact  made  between 
each  and  all,  and  do  that  which  cannot  be  done 
without  trespassing  upon  rights  secured  by  such 
compact.  To  continue  an  orderly  administra¬ 
tion,  to  abide  by  the  Constitution  and  laws,  and 
to  seek  redress  of  wrongs,  real  or  supposed,  only 
in  the  manner  therein  prescribed,  are  among 
the  duties  and  triumphs  of  popular  govern¬ 
ment.  There  is  nothing  so  wicked  as  a  mob; 
nothing  more  cruel  and  unreasonable.  The 
long  lines  of  burning  cars  seen  in  Chicago  at 
the  time  of  the  Pullman  strike,  the  stripping 
of  a  woman  of  her  clothing  in  St.  Louis  merely 
because  she  rode  in  a  street-car  belonging  to  an 
obnoxious  company,  and  the  flames  which  re¬ 
cently  rose  up  around  a  burning  negro  in 
Leavenworth  are  but  illustrations.  There  is 
no  one  so  dangerous  as  the  demagogue,  who 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


25 


cries  the  people/^  and  urges  a  disregard, 
by  force,  of  laws  and  the  rights  secured  by  those 
laws.  Fortunately  we  have  escaped  the  whirli¬ 
gigs  of  revolution  which  have  attended  the  ef¬ 
forts  of  many  peoples  to  establish  popular 
government.  The  sense  of  order,  respect  for 
law,  and  self-restraint,  which  thus  far  have 
characterized  the  American  people  are  among 
the  sure  prophecies  of  permanent  popular  gov¬ 
ernment,  and  woe  be  to  the  man  who  seeks  to 
influence  the  passions  and  forcibly  overthrow 
the  restraints  of  law. 

In  the  second  place,  we  face  the  dangers 
which  come  from  an  heterogeneous  population, 
a  not  inconsiderable  fraction  of  which  is  of  peo¬ 
ples  with  no  conception  of  that  which  is  the 
only  true  liberty — ^liberty  regulated  by  law — 
peoples  who  look  upon  every  policeman  as  an 
enemy,  every  sheriff  as  a  tyrant,  and  all  the 
forms  of  law  as  so  many  processes  of  despot¬ 
ism.  The  original  races  which  founded  this 
nation  are  still  dominant ;  and  yet  if  one  were 
dropped  into  some  of  the  streets  of  New  York 
or  Boston  he  might  wonder  if  he  were  in 


26 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


America  or  Ireland.  If  he  passed  through 
many  of  the  mining  districts  of  Pennsylvania 
he  might  fancy  himself  in  Hungary  or  Italy. 
In  certain  parts  of  Chicago  he  would  believe 
himself  in  Bohemia  or  Poland;  and  the  great 
Northwest  is  a  second  Scandinavia.  To  min¬ 
gle  these  heterogeneous  elements  in  one  homo¬ 
geneous  American  people,  and  to  so  mingle  that 
the  good  qualities  of  each  shall  be  preserved 
and  the  bad  qualities  of  each  cast  out  is  one  of 
the  great  tasks  of  the  American  people. 

In  the  third  place,  we  are  in  the  presence  of 
those  dangers  which  come  from  unexampled 
material  prosperity.  As  a  nation  we  are  grow¬ 
ing  marvellously  rich.  More  and  more  we  hear 
of  the  discontents  which  arise  from  the  unequal 
distribution  of  this  wealth.  On  the  one  hand 
is  to  be  seen  extravagance  and  luxury,  with  its 
often  attendant  vice;  on  the  other,  the  bitter¬ 
ness  which  comes  from  envy  or  a  sense  of 
wrong.  These  are  dangers  to  the  Kepublic. 

As  against  these  and  all  like  them  the  indi¬ 
vidual  citizen  is  the  Kepublic’s  strength  and 
hope.  He  may  become  a  power.  He  has  a 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


27 


duty.  He  should  so  live  and  act  that  it  may 
be  said  of  him,  as  of  Wellington: 

‘  ‘  That  tower  of  strength, 

Which  stood  four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blew.”  ’ 

\ 

Upon  him  rests  the  burden  of  overcoming 
these  dangers.  He  may  not  transfer  responsi¬ 
bility  to  a  government.  He  is  the  government. 

It  is  the  citizen’s  privilege,  his  duty,  his  glory, 
to  stand  firmly  against  all  movements  and  ef¬ 
forts  to  weaken  the  force  of  law,  to  disturb 
social  order,  or  to  tear  down  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  and  substitute  the  red  flag  of  the 
Anarchist. 

To  fuse  all  heterogeneous  elements  in  the 
crucible  of  national  life,  and  to  so  fuse  them 
as  to  leave  out  all  that  is  base  and  unworthy, 
require  the  powerful  solvents  of  education  and 
religion.  These  solvents  are  found  in  the  in¬ 
dividual.  To  him,  therefore,  we  must  look  for 
the  force  which  will  cast  out  the  folly  of  re¬ 
garding  law  as  the  enemy  of  liberty,  which  will 
put  an  end  to  habits  formed  under  despotism 
and  unsuited  to  popular  government,  and 


28 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


which  will  unite  in  one  common  flow  all  those 
thoughts,  purposes,  aspirations,  and  activities 
of  the  various  peoples  and  races  gathering  on 
our  soil  which  mean  well  for  the  race  and  for 
the  glory  of  the  nation. 

Amid  all  the  displays  of  wealth,  all  the  social 
inequalities  which  spring  therefrom,  the  indi¬ 
vidual  may  and  must  stand  as  a  constant  wit¬ 
ness  to  the  unfailing  truth  that  the  life  is  more 
than  meat,  the  man  more  than  the  accident  of 
riches.  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  finds  its 
most  magnificent  affirmative  answer  in  the 
duty  of  the  American  citizen  to  the  nation. 
Picture  the  glory  of  this  Eepublic  if  in  each 
individual  life  were  fully  disclosed  respect  for 
law,  taste  for  justice,  regard  for  the  rights  of 
others,  remembrance  of  the  poor  and  afflicted, 
encouragement  of  education,  the  helping  hand 
to  everything  that  is  true,  beautiful  and  good. 
The  ages  will  see  the  fulness  and  glory  of  the 
picture.  The  future  will  not  disappoint  us. 
The  loved  poet  is  the  prophet,  clear-visioned 
and  true,  when  he  sings : 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  CITIZENSHIP 


29 


“  Thou,  too,  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State  ! 

Sail  on,  O  Union,  strong  and  great ! 

Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 

With  all  the  hopes  of  future  years. 

Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate  ! 

We  know  what  Master  laid  thy  keel, 

What  Workman  wrought  thy  ribs  of  steel, 
Who  made  each  mast,  and  sail,  and  rope. 
What  anvils  rang,  what  hammers  beat. 

In  what  a  forge  and  what  a  heat 
Were  shaped  the  anchors  of  thy  hope  ! 

Fear  not  each  sudden  sound  and  shock, 

’Tis  of  the  wave  and  not  the  rock  ; 

’Tis  but  the  flapping  of  the  sail. 

And  not  a  rent  made  by  the  gale  ! 

In  spite  of  rock  and  tempest’s  roar. 

In  spite  of  false  lights  on  the  shore. 

Sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea  ! 

Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  are  all  with  thee, 

Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears, 
Our  faith  triumphant  o’er  our  fears. 

Are  all  with  thee, — are  all  with  thee.” 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A 
OBLIGATION 


PRIMARY 


II 


THE  MAINTENANCE  OF  A  GOOD  CHARACTER  A 

PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  OF  EVERY  CITIZEN 

I  endeavored  to  develop  in  my  former  lect¬ 
ure  the  thought  that  there  were  responsibili¬ 
ties  resting  upon  every  citizen  of  every  nation 
by  virtue  of  his  citizenship,  and  that  none 
were  greater  than  those  which  rested  upon  a 
citizen  of  this  Republic.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  responsibility  of  an  American  citizen  is 
greater  than  that  of  a  citizen  of  any  other  na¬ 
tion  it  becomes  correspondingly  important  to 
know  what  action  on  his  part  such  responsi¬ 
bility  calls  for.  To  say  that  an  individual  is 
responsible,  and  not  define  what  his  responsi¬ 
bilities  are,  to  say  that  he  owes  duties  and  obli¬ 
gations  and  not  make  clear  the  nature  and  ex¬ 
tent  of  those  duties  and  obligations  is  to  leave 
the  matter  less  than  half  disclosed.  May  he  by 

a  single  act  discharge  the  full  measure  of  his 

33 


34 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


responsibility  and  relieve  himself  from  all  fur¬ 
ther  obligations?  If  not^  what  must  he  do, 
and  how  often  must  he  act? 

It  is  one  of  the  weaknesses  of  our  nature  to 
desire  to  be  rid  entirely  of  obligations,  or,  if 
not  rid  entirely,  to  discharge  them  by  a  single 
act.  We  would  be  benevolent,  charitable,  but 
would  gladly  give  many  dollars  in  a  single  sum 
if  thereby  we  could  cancel  all  our  obligations 
in  that  direction.  We  would  be  religious,  but 
how  many  would  fain  limit  their  religion,  like 
the  putting  on  of  a  clean  shirt  and  the  wear¬ 
ing  of  the  best  clothes,  to  Sunday?  We  all 
look  forward  hopefully  to  an  entrance  into 
heaven,  but  wish  there  was  some  kindly  power 
who  could  sell  us  a  ticket,  receive  the  price  and 
end  the  transaction  at  once.  This  having  ever¬ 
more  over  us  a  responsibility,  one  which  never 
fails  in  its  demands,  and  which  continues  until 
our  latest  breath,  is  something  from  which  we 
willingly  turn. 

I  wish  to  impress  upon  you  this  afternoon 
the  thought  that  the  responsibility  of  a  citizen 
is  something  which,  like  the  heartbeat,  stays 


,wOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  35 


with  him  through  life,  the  care  of  which  is 
essential  to  his  own  highest  development,  and 
in  the  constant  recognition  of  which  is  alone 
found  the  successful  life  of  the  nation.  And 
in  order  to  develop  this  thought  I  must  no¬ 
tice  some  of  the  many  obligations  which  rest 
upon  the  citizen;  some  of  the  duties  imposed 
upon  him.  I  use  the  plural  nouns,  because  it 
is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  there  is  but  a  single 
obligation  or  a  single  duty  to  be  performed. 
No  one  can  say  I  have  voted  at  every  election, 
and  in  so  doing  I  have  discharged  my  entire 
duty  to  the  Kepublic’’;  or  have  served 
faithfully  as  a  soldier  in  the  army,  and  so  have 
fulfilled  the  whole  measure  of  my  obligation  to 
the  nation,”  any  more  than  a  parent  can  say 
have  fed  my  child,  and  thus  have  dis¬ 
charged  the  full  measure  of  my  duty  to  him.” 

The  first  matter  which  I  shall  notice  is  what 
may  be  called  the  obligation  of  personal  char¬ 
acter.  In  other  words,  each  citizen  owes  to  the 
nation  the  duty  of  maintaining  in  himself  a 
high,  clean,  moral  character.  His  personal 
morality  is  a  debt  to  the  nation.  Indeed,  it  is 


36 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


a  part  of  the  nation^s  morality.  I  mention  this 
first  because  it  is  of  primary  importance,  an 
obligation  which  is  binding  upon  all  citizens, 
and  binding  at  all  times  and  in  all  places. 
There  is  no  break  or  cessation  in  its  force,  and 
there  are  no  conditions  or  circumstances  under 
or  by  which  any  citizen  is  released  from  its 
demands. 

It  is  the  one  duty  which  underlies  all  others ; 
with  it  we  may  hope  to  realize  something  of 
the  greatness  and  nobility  of  citizenship  in  this 
republic;  without  it  the  loudest  voices  of  as¬ 
sumed  patriotism  are  but  sounding  brass  and 
tinkling  cymbals. 

What  is  good  character  ?  It  is  righteousness 
in  the  soul.  It  is  the  shining  jewel  of  life, 
that  to  which  we  all  look  up,  which  we  all 
love  and  admire.  It  makes  the  chasm  which 
separates  man  from  the  brute,  the  great  gulf 
fixed which  the  brute  cannot  cross  and  the 
man  ought  not  to  cross.  It  is  the  link  which 
binds  him  to  the  divine.  In  flesh  we  are 
brothers  of  the  beast,  living  without  thought; 
unmoved  by  conscience,  ignorant  of  purity  and 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  37 

dying  without  hope  or  remorse.  In  nobility  of 
soul,  in  elevation  of  character,  we  are  heirs  not 
merely  of  the  ages  but  of  eternity;  we  clasp 
hands  with  the  Infinite  and  Eternal,  and  are 
bold  to  say  of  thee,  and  thine.’’ 

One  seldom  sinks  so  low  in  the  scale  of  be¬ 
ing  as  not  to  have  respect  and  admiration  for 
the  high  and  noble.  He  never  becomes  so  far 
in  love  with  his  own  vices  as  not  to  be  touched 
with  respect  for  him  who  has  them  not.  A 
good  name  is  rather  to  be  chosen  than  great 
riches,  and  loving  favor  rather  than  silver  and 
gold.”  We  long  for  it  ourselves,  and  we  joy 
to  see  it  in  our  homes,  our  friends,  and  in  all 
with  whom  we  are  thrown  in  contact.  With  it 
heaven  may  begin  on  earth ;  without  it  death 
is  not  needed  for  admission  to  hell. 

Who  does  not  wish  that  death  would  bring 
him  such  tribute  as  this  from  an  English  poet 
to  an  English  General? 

Strew  not  on  the  hero’s  hearse 
Garlands  of  a  herald’s  verse  : 

Let  us  hear  no  words  of  Fame 
Seunding  loud  a  deathless  name  : 


38 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


Tell  US  of  no  vauntful  Glory 
Shouting  forth  her  haughty  story. 

All  life  long  his  homage  rose 
To  far  other  shrine  than  those. 

“  In  hoc  signo,”  pale  nor  dim, 

Lit  the  battle-field  for  him, 

And  the  prize  he  sought  and  won, 

Was  the  Crown  for  Duty  done. 

There  is  power  also  in  character.  I  know 
there  are  many  who  think  that  it  is  enough  to 
be  smart;  that  brains  are  the  only  thing  that 
count  in  this  world ;  that  you  may  live  and  act 
as  you  please ;  that  you  may  safely  get  the  bet¬ 
ter  of  others,  by  ways  however  crooked,  pro¬ 
vided  they  do  not  end  in  the  penitentiary.  I 
am  not  disposed  to  belittle  the  value  of  brains. 
I  am  not  underwriting  the  idiot.  I  am  aware 
that  success  often  attends  those  who  know  noth¬ 
ing  of  the  Golden  Rule,  and  who  remember  only 
so  much  of  the  Decalogue  as  is  framed  in  the 
penal  statutes.  I  know  there  may  be  brilliancy 
going  hand  in  hand  with  vice;  and  yet,  after 
all,  one  of  the  strongest  forces  that  make  for 
individual  success  is  character.  Looking  back 
through  life  at  the  multitudes  I  have  known. 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  39 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  majority 
of  the  successful  ones  owe  whatever  of  success 
they  have  attained  as  much  if  not  more  to  their 
characters  as  to  their  brains.  And  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  failures  have  been  due  not 
to  lack  of  capacity,  or  even  want  of  opportu¬ 
nity,  but  to  the  fact  that  when  tested  their 
characters  failed,  and  they  proved  unworthy  of 
confidence.  So  it  is  that  character  is  not  only 
the  beautiful  thing;  it  is  the  valuable  thing. 

And  that  which  is  true  of  the  individual  is 
also  true  of  the  nation.  Its  good  character  is 
its  beauty  and  strength.  If  it  is  to  be  loved 
and  honored  it  must  he  honest  and  just.  It 
must  stand  firm  against  all  wrong,  and  uphold 
every  effort  for  right;  hold  evermore  the  even 
scales  of  justice  and  the  strong  hand  of 
honesty. 

That  a  nation,  as  such,  has  a  character,  and 
is  known  by  it,  is  obvious.  True,  it  is  often 
said  that  a  corporation  has  neither  body  to  be 
kicked  nor  soul  to  be  damned,  and  many  seem 
to  think  that  the  organization  of  individuals 
into  a  corporate  body  creates  an  artificial 


40 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


entity  destitute  of  moral  qualities.  Doubtless 
many  corporate  acts  proceed  upon  the  theory 
that  the  acting  body  has  no  moral  qualities,  and 
can  never  be  held  delinquent  in  the  forum  of 
conscience.  And  that  which  is  said  of  private 
corporations  is  also  affirmed  of  that  large  cor¬ 
porate  body  called  the  nation;  but  both  reason 
and  history  protest  against  such  an  assertion  of 
moral  poverty.  The  organization  of  individu¬ 
als  into  a  corporate  body,  whether  small  or 
great,  local  or  national,  is  not  a  movement  out¬ 
side  the  domain  of  morals,  does  not  eliminate 
the  matter  of  character,  does  not  create  a  mere 
machine  like  a  steam-engine  unaffected  by  con¬ 
science,  but  simply  puts  into  an  organic  whole 
the  combined  consciences,  characters  and  mo¬ 
rality  of  all  the  individual  members.  You 
never  would  call  that  a  temperance  community, 
half  of  whose  citizens  went  home  every  night 
intoxicated,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  its  ordinances  contained  the  finest  body 
of  temperance  legislation  ever  written.  Their 
actions  would  contradict  their  words.  You 
would  not  think  that  a  moral  city  on  whose 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  41 


every  street  were  the  gilded  palaces  of  sin. 
Yon  would  not  call  that  an  honest  community, 
none  of  whose  citizens  paid  their  debts,  and 
this  although  it  was  full  of  lawyers;  nor  that 
a  healthy  place  where  only  the  doctors  did  a 
thriving  business.  Historically,  we  all  know 
that  nations  as  well  as  cities  are  spoken  of  as 
possessed  of  certain  characteristics  and  accus¬ 
tomed  to  certain  lines  of  actions,  which  char¬ 
acteristics  and  actions  are  simply  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  their  characters. 

;  It  may  be  said  that  character  is  a  personal 
matter,  that  the  maintenance  of  one  which  is 
free  from  stain  is  the  discharge  of  a  duty  to 
one’s  self,  or,  at  most,  only  to  one’s  family  and 
friends,  or  to  God.  I  do  not  question  the  force 
of  the  obligation  in  all  these  directions,  but  I 
assert  that  in  addition  thereto  the  making  and 
keeping  of  a  high  and  noble  character  is  one 
of  the  duties  of  the  individual  to  the  nation, 
and  to  be  numbered  among  the  responsibilities 
of  citizenship. 

A  nation  may  be  regarded  in  a  twofold  as¬ 
pect.  In  the  one  it  is  to  be  viewed  as  standing 


42 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


over  against  the  individual,  an  artificial  entity 
separate  and  distinct  from  all  its  citizens,  thus 
coming  closely  within  the  definition  of  a  cor¬ 
poration,  as  given  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall; 
in  the  other,  and  a  perfectly  consistent  aspect, 
it  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  aggregation  of  indi¬ 
viduals.  In  the  one  it  is  a  unit;  in  the  other 
a  collection  of  units.  In  either  case  the  moral 

I 

element  is  the  bright  coloring  of  the  picture. 
We  speak  of  international  law  as  a  body  of 
rules  regulating  the  intercourse  of  nations. 
In  this  the  nation  is  an  artificial  entity — an  in¬ 
corporeal  being — a  unit  among  nations,  one 
whose  conduct  is  to  be  regulated  by  certain 
rules  adopted  by  the  family  of  nations.  This 
individuality,  this  singleness  of  national  life,  is 
as  true  of  this  Republic  as  of  any  other  nation, 
and  this  whether  we  say.  The  United  States  of 
America  are,  or  The  United  States  of  America 
is.  The  one  expression  simply  indicates  the 
Federal  system  under  which  the  nation  exists. 
A  nation  in  its  dealings  with  other  nations  is 
bound  to  certain  rules  of  conduct  which  it  is 
universally  conceded  should  be  founded  upon 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  43 

justice  and  righteousness.  The  declaration  of 
scripture,  righteousness  exalteth  a  nation ; 
but  sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people/’  is  a  sound 
maxim  of  international  law.  Indeed,  some 
writers  have  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  that  such 
declaration  is  the  foundation  upon  which  that 
law  rests,  and  that  by  it  alone,  and  without 
regard  to  actual  approval  or  practical  recog¬ 
nition  by  the  nations,  may  be  determined 
whether  a  certain  course  of  conduct  has  the 
sanction  of  international  law.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  the  moral  element  in  a  nation’s  life,  look¬ 
ing  at  it  as  one  among  many  nations,  is  beyond 

dispute. 

Again,  while  we  look  upon  the  nation  in  its 
relations  to  other  nations  and  for  the  purpose 
of  determining  its  international  rights  and 
duties  as  a  unit,  in  the  other  aspect  every  na¬ 
tion  or  tribe  is  only  an  assemblage  of  many  in¬ 
dividuals.  As  in  this  aspect  it  is  the  aggre¬ 
gation  of  the  lives  and  forces  of  all  its  citizens, 
so  its  character  is  the  combined  total  of  their 
characters.  If  they  are  all  savages,  the  tribe 
or  nation  is  itself  a  savage  tribe  or  nation.  If 


44 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


all  are  civilized  and  enlightened  the  nation  is 
civilized  and  enlightened.  In  other  words,  the 
nation  is  not  simply  the  numerical  aggregation 
of  so  many  individuals,  but  is  the  combination 
of  all  the  mental  and  moral  characteristics  of 
those  individuals.  That  which  can  be  affirmed 
of  all  the  citizens  may  with  equal  truth  be  af¬ 
firmed  of  the  nation.  You  cannot  disassociate 
the  character  of  the  nation  and  that  of  its  citi¬ 
zens.  You  cannot  have  an  ideally  perfect  na¬ 
tion,  the  citizens  of  which  are  thoroughly  bad; 
and  if  all  the  citizens  live  up  to  the  highest 
possibilities  of  their  lives  you  may  be  sure  that 
the  nation  of  which  they  are  citizens  stands  out 
before  the  world  as  one  whose  ideals  are  of  the 
highest.  A  good  man  does  not  intentionally 
do  a  bad  act.  Ten  good  men  acting  together 
are  equally  honest,  and  so  if  all  the  citizens  of 
a  nation  are  animated  by  the  one  high  purpose 
the  acts  of  the  nation  will  likewise  be  above  the 
plane  of  intentional  wrong. 

Two  things  may  be  noticed  of  the  obligation 
in  respect  to  personal  character:  One,  that  it 
is  universal;  and  the  other,  that  it  is  continu- 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  45 


ous.  There  are  certain  duties  which  rest  upon 
some  citizens  and  do  not  rest  upon  all.  Thus, 
some  are  called  upon  to  render  military  ser¬ 
vice;  others  to  perform  the  functions  of  jurors; 
to  discharge  duties  attaching  to  certain  offices; 
and  yet  it  cannot  be  said  of  all  citizens  of  both 
sexes  that  they  are  alike  amenable  to  all  these 
obligations  and  called  upon  to  render  the  same 
services.  The  varied  conditions  and  circum¬ 
stances  of  life  impose  certain  duties  upon  some 
which  are  not  cast  upon  others,  but  the  obli¬ 
gation  of  personal  character  is  one  resting  alike 
upon  each  and  all.  As  one  member  of  the  body 
politic  his  individual  character  enters  into  the 
sum  total  of  all  characters,  and  thus  goes  to 
make  up  that  of  the  nation. 

It  is  also  continuous,  and  this  because  human 
character  is  itself  a  continuous  thing.  It  is 
not  made  up  of  one  or  many  acts.  Indeed, 
actions  are  but  evidences  thereof.  We  judge 
of  a  man’s  character  by  his  conduct,  although 
we  know  that  the  two  are  not  always  alike. 
Hypocrisy  may  exist.  There  may  be  not  only 
a  difference  but  an  absolute  antagonism  be- 


46 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


tween  the  two.  And  yet  a  noble  character  is 
sure  to  express  itself  in  actions  of  a  like  nature. 

By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them  ’’  is  the 
best  rule  we  have.  And  character  is  the  thing 
of  value;,  the  enduring  fact.  It  is  continuous, 
is  part  of  the  life.  And  this  is  true  both  of 
the  individual  and  the  nation. 

hTo  one  can  excuse  himself  from  his  duty  to 
the  State  to  establish  and  maintain  a  good  per¬ 
sonal  character  on  the  plea  that  he  is  but  one 
of  a  great  multitude,  and  therefore  his  single 
life  and  character  count  for  little  or  nothing. 
Doubtless  the  influence  of  one  bad  man  is  more 
obvious  in  a  small  than  in  a  large  society.  If 
a  community  were  composed  of  but  ten  per¬ 
sons,  of  whom  half  were  good  and  the  other 
half  bad,  who  would  not  expect  the  latter  half 
to  make  a  powerful  impression  on  the  general 
life?  While,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  were 
composed  of  a  hundred  and  only  five  were  bad 
the  numerical  predominance  of  the  good  would 
go  far  to  establish  a  good  character  in  the  or¬ 
ganized  whole.  But  the  presence  of  even  a 
single  bad  man  in  any  society  is  an  influence 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  47 

for  evil.  It  is  a  blot  on  its  character.  A  sin¬ 
gle  flaw  in  a  diamond  detracts  from  its  worth, 
and  although  the  great  mass  of  the  crystal  be 
perfectly  pure  yet  the  single  flaw  is  always  seen 
and  discredits  the  value.  If  there  be  but  one 
black  sheep  in  a  flock  every  passer-by  notices 
that  sheep,  and  so  a  single  bad  man  in  a  com¬ 
munity  becomes  an  obvious  element  of  dis¬ 
grace.  Nor  is  it  a  mere  question  of  appear¬ 
ance.  It  is  not  simply  that  there  is  a  flaw — a 
black  sheep.  The  influence  of  that  man  is 
constantly  for  evil.  “  A  little  leaven  leaveneth 
the  whole  lump,”  and  character  is  one  of  those 
potent  things  which,  going  out  beyond  the  in¬ 
dividual,  touches  for  good  or  for  ill  all  within 
its  reach.  No  man  liveth  unto  himself  alone. 
We  stamp  our  impress  on  the  immediate  com¬ 
munity  in  which  we  dwell,  and  through  that 
community  affect  for  weal  or  woe  the  great  na¬ 
tion  of  which  we  are  a  part.  The  inexperi¬ 
enced,  the  unwary,  all  become  more  or  less 
affected  by  a  bad  man’s  influence,  and  over  the 
community  as  a  whole  the  shadow  rests.  So 
no  man  can  say  that  he  is  but  one  in  a  thou- 


48 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


sand  and  it  matters  not  that  he  is  vile,  that 
his  character  is  bad,  for  not  only  will  his  bad 
character  cast  a  shadow  bnt  also  will  his  influ¬ 
ence  reach  and  demoralize  far  and  wide. 

But  one  may  say  this  is  all  very  true  of  those 
who  are  rulers,  who  hold  the  offices,  who  are 
the  leaders  in  society,  whose  opinions  are 
quoted,  whose  power  is  felt,  but  as  for  me,  I 
have  neither  office  nor  power,  I  am  never  men¬ 
tioned  in  the  papers,  I  live  an  unnoticed  life, 
and  therefore  what  difference  does  my  charac¬ 
ter  make  in  the  national  life.  It  is  undoubt¬ 
edly  true  that  the  higher  the  position  a  man 
holds,  and  the  greater  the  influence  he  pos¬ 
sesses,  the  more  important  is  his  good  character 
to  the  community.  All  appreciate  this.  Cor¬ 
ruption  in  the  President  or  venality  in  the 
Supreme  Court  would  be  a  terrible  blow  to  the 
nation’s  good  name.  Licentiousness,  if  any 
exists,  on  the  part  of  the  nation’s  represent¬ 
atives,  is  carefully  concealed;  and  Mr.  Eoberts, 
of  Utah,  appreciates  the  fact  that  even  a  Con¬ 
gressman  is  not  permitted  to  have  more  than 
one  wife  at  a  time.  High  position  carries  with 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  49 

it  added  responsibility.  ‘‘Noblesse  oblige” 
Of  him  to  whom  ten  talents  were  given  ten 
talents  additional  were  required.  Yet  it  is 
equally  true  that  he  to  whom  a  single  talent 
was  given  was  not  excused  for  leaving  that 
talent  idle.  No  one,  however  humble,  can  re¬ 
lieve  himself  from  responsibility.  He  may  be 
but  one  out  of  many,  but  he  is  one,  and  con¬ 
tributes  to  make  up  the  general  character.  He 
pours  his  breath  into  the  social  atmosphere, 
and  if  that  breath  be  poisonous  he  to  some 
extent  contaminates  the  air.  What  would  be 
the  standing  of  this  nation  if  only  its  presi¬ 
dents  and  judges  were  pure  and  honest  ?  Does 
any  one  suppose  that  the  character  of  the  na¬ 
tion  would  be  determined  by  the  few  holding 
those  positions?  Indeed,  how  can  we  expect 
that  they  who  occupy  representative  places  will 
continue  pure  and  honest  if  the  great  mass  of 
the  people  are  not  ?  If  the  atmosphere  in 
which  these  few  live  is  filled  with  poison  can 
they  escape  its  effect?  Are  they  not  in  fact 
upheld  and  strengthened  in  good  conduct  by 
their  surroundings  of  good  character  ?  Is  not 


50 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


the  integrity  of  our  officials  largely  owing  to 
the  integrity  of  the  American  people?  I  have 
been  thirty-six  years  on  the  bench  and  no  one, 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  word  of  mouth  or  let¬ 
ter,  or  in  any  other  way,  ever  proposed,  sug¬ 
gested,  or  intimated  that  any  decision  I  might 
be  called  on  to  make  would  be  for  my  benefit 
pecuniarily,  politically,  socially,  or  otherwise. 
If  I  had  had  any  desire  to  do  wrong  I  should 
have  had  to  seek  someone  to  corrupt  me.  In 
order  to  be  tempted  I  should  have  had  to  invite 
the  tempter,  instead  of  waiting  for  the  tempta¬ 
tion.  Would  I  have  been  able  to  say  this  if  the 
great  body  of  the  people  among  whom  my  life 
has  been  cast  had  been  corrupt  ?  Could  I  have 
hoped  to  escape  temptation  to  do  wrong?  So 
that,  after  all,  the  clean  lives  of  those  in  posi¬ 
tion  are  not  a  little  owing  to  the  good  char¬ 
acter  of  those  who  place  them  there,  and  who 
support  them  there. 

We  are  all  proud  of  the  fact  that  this  Ee- 
public  has  maintained  so  high  a  character  dur¬ 
ing  the  century  of  its  existence.  While  there 
are  doubtless  many  things  in  its  history  which 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  51 


we  wish  were  not  there,  yet  we  rejoice  to  believe 
that  generally,  both  in  its  inner  life  and  in  its 
dealings  with  other  nations,  it  has  striven  for 
those  things  which  make  for  truth,  justice, 
honesty  and  purity.  While  we  are  justly  proud 
of  all  its  material  development,  its  increase  in 
population,  its  growth  in  wealth,  and  in  all 
those  things  which  go  to  make  up  its  outward 
tangible  prosperity,  we  rejoice  the  more  in 
that  which  it  has  done  to  uphold  before  the 
world  ideals  of  the  highest  kind.  We  point 
to  its  efforts  to  meliorate  the  hardships  of 
war,  and  all  that  it  has  done  in  the  way  of 
arbitration  and  peace ;  to  that  which  it  has 
done  to  protect  its  citizens  against  oppression 
and  wrong,  wherever  they  may  have  chanced  to 
be;  to  all  that  it  has  spoken  and  done  for  lib¬ 
erty;  to  the  grandeur  of  that  civil  war,  waged 
to  put  an  end  to  slavery  within  its  borders ;  to 
its  assumption  of  the  burdens  of  war  in  behalf 
of  a  people  struggling  for  liberty,  a  people 
bound  to  us  by  no  ties  of  blood,  yet  so  situated 
that  action  in  their  behalf  was  simply  writing 
the  blessed  word  neighbor  into  the  vocabulary 


52 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


of  nations^  and  to  countless  other  acts  of  lofty 
character,  and  are  proud  of  our  country.  And 
let  us  ever  remember  in  our  rejoicing,  that  the 
sources  and  causes  of  every  noble  thing  in  our 
3^  s  life  are  to  be  found  in  the  thoughts 
and  lives  of  individual  citizens  who  have  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  transferring  something  of  their  own 
high  characters  into  the  life  of  the  nation. 
And  so  remembering,  let  us  ever  strive  to  dis¬ 
charge  one  of  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship 
by  maintaining  in  our  own  lives  a  like  lofty 
character. 

As  a  nation  we  stand  face  to  face  with  a 
great  fact.  The  century  and  more  of  our  na¬ 
tional  life  has  been  lived  in  a  career  of  self¬ 
development,  and  with  an  isolation  from  other 
nations  suggested  by  the  words  of  wisdom  in 
the  farewell  address  of  the  Father  of  His  Coun¬ 
try.  We  have  stood  aloof  from  the  great  events 
of  the  other  hemisphere,  endeavoring  to  main¬ 
tain  a  position  of  equal  justice  to  all,  but  of 
equal  separation  from  all,  content  to  uphold 
that  which  we  call  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the 
separation  and  consecration  of  this  continent 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  53 


to  those  ideas  of  popular  government  which  lie 
at  the  foundation  of  this  nation’s  life.  But  we 
enter  the  new  century  under  changed  condi¬ 
tions.  Commerce,  whose  mandate  no  law  can 
stay,  whose  excursions  no  legislature  can 
check,  is  bringing  us,  whether  we  will  or  no, 
into  the  great  council  of  nations.  The  ac¬ 
cumulated  products  of  our  territory  are  pour¬ 
ing  into  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  seeking 
a  market.  Our  marvellous  inventive  genius, 
showing  itself  in  wonderful  mechanical  con¬ 
trivances,  is  looking  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
new  continent  for  places  in  which  it  may  find 
some  adequate  compensation.  Japan,  one  na¬ 
tion  in  the  silent  Orient,  felt  the  touch  of  our 
national  activity,  and  she  has  passed  out  of  ob¬ 
scurity  into  the  great  life  of  the  world,  and 
to-day  stands  as  one  of  its  magnificent  factors. 
China,  that  great  mass  of  an  efiete  civilization, 
moving  yet  moving  slowly  even  in  the  wondrous 
disturbances  which  now  agitate  it,  turns  with 
abundant  faith  to  this  nation  for  help  in  its 
time  of  distress.  So,  whether  we  wished  it  or 
not,  we  are  forced  into  a  position  where  our 


54 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


national  life  is  not  simply  to  be  considered  in 
reference  to  those  within  our  territory  but  as 
an  important  and  dominant  fact  in  the  great 
councils  of  the  world.  Shall  we  in  these  coun¬ 
cils,  and  in  our  dealings  with  others,  follow  the 
Talleyrand  notion  that  language  is  something 
to  conceal  rather  than  to  express  thought,  or 
shall  we  stand  as  one  nation  at  least  whose  pur¬ 
poses  and  life  are  measured  by  absolute  truth 
and  honesty  a  nation  which  has  no  secondary 
and  concealed  motive  in  its  dealings  with  oth¬ 
ers;  a  nation  which  always  says  what  it  means 
and  means  what  it  says,  and  strives  to  have 
every  utterance  in  accord  with  the  highest 
dictates  of  truth  and  justice? 

Many  of  our  citizens  are  to-day  troubled  by 
the  fact  that,  as  the  outcome  of  the  late  war 
with  Spain,  we  have  taken  distant  islands  with 
a  large  population  of  a  character  illy  in  accord 
with  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  We  wonder 
what  the  outcome  of  this  venture  will  be. 
Earnest  discussion  fills  the  papers,  the  halls  of 
Congress,  and  comes  into  the  great  tribunal  of 
the  nation.  What  are  the  bounds  of  our  power 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  55 


over  those  people,  and  what  must  be,  in  accord 
with  our  constitutional  limitations,  the  measure 
of  our  duties  to  them?  As  one  of  that  tri¬ 
bunal,  before  which  some  of  those  questions  are 
pending,  I  can,  of  course,  say  nothing  as  to 
its  decisions,  but  I  may  say  that  far  above  all 
questions  of  constitutional  limitation,  far 
above  all  the  problems  which  courts  may  be 
called  on  to  solve,  is  the  hopeful  and  assuring 
thought  that  a  solemn  sense  of  responsibility 
fills  the  American  soul.  If  they  who  to-day 
compose  the  great  body  of  recognized  American 
people  shall  lift  their  own  lives  up  into  the 
purity  demanded  by  high  character,  if  they 
shall  measure  their  intercourse  with  the  dwell¬ 
ers  in  these  insular  possessions  by  the  rules  of 
true  manhood,  it  is  a  secondary  matter  what 
may  be  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  the  policy 
of  the  Administration,  or  the  action  of  Con¬ 
gress,  for  we  may  be  sure  that  the  nation  will 
move,  with  or  without  constitutional  amend¬ 
ment,  along  that  great  highway  which  is  full 
of  blessing  to  all  within  its  jurisdiction,  and 
to  the  great  world  which  surrounds  it. 


56 


AMEKICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


I  want,  with  all  the  solemnity  of  a  life  that 
has  been  earnestly  lived,  with  all  that  comes 
from  years  of  experience  in  varied  directions, 
to  appeal  to  you,  young  gentlemen,  lovers  of 
your  country,  loyal  to  all  its  best  interests,  with 
unbounding  faith  in  its  future,  willing  to  live 
and  to  serve,  and  to  die  if  need  be  for  its  honor 
and  glory,  I  want  to  press  upon  you  this  after¬ 
noon  the  thought  that  one  grand  way  in  which 
all  can  do  abundantly  for  its  glory  and  life  is 
in  building  up  within  yourselves  that  pure  and 
lofty  personal  character  which  makes  the  indi¬ 
vidual  loved,  which  gives  him  power,  and 
causes  his  life  to  become  a  blessing  to  his  com¬ 
munity,  his  nation,  and  the  world. 

The  dawn  of  the  new  century  is  a  great  oc¬ 
casion.  I  wish  it  were  my  privilege  to  enter 
into  its  marvellous  opportunities,  to  take  part 
in  the  wondrous  works  which  it  is  to  see  and 
to  do.  That  privilege  belongs  to  youth — to 
educated  youth,  to  eager,  aspiring,  consecrated 
youth;  youth  which  sees  the  sunlight  flush 
with  its  crimson  glow  the  eastern  skies  and  will 
watch  with  attendant  hearts  that  glow  deepen- 


GOOD  CHARACTER  A  PRIMARY  OBLIGATION  57 


ing  and  strengthening  into  noontide  splendor 
and  glory.  And  yet  if  I  may  not  be  with  you 
to  share  and  see  that  which  is  to  come,  I  may 
to-day  join  you  in  Whittier’s  thanksgiving  and 
prayer : 

Our  father’s  God  !  From  out  whose  hand 
The  centuries  fall  like  grains  of  sand, 

We  meet  to-day,  united,  free, 

And  loyal  to  our  land  and  Thee, 

To  thank  Thee  for  the  era  done 
And  trust  Thee  for  the  opening  one. 

For  art  and  labor  met  in  truce. 

For  beauty  made  the  bride  of  use. 

We  thank  Thee  ;  but  withal  we  crave 
The  austere  virtues  strong  to  save — 

The  honor  proof  to  place  or  gold 

if 

The  manhood  never  bought  or  sold. 

O  make  Thou  us  through  centuries  long. 

In  peace  secure,  in  justice  strong  ; 

Around  our  gift  of  freedom  draw 
The  safeguards  of  our  righteous  law  ; 

And,  cast  in  some  diviner  mold. 

Let  the  new  cycle  shame  the  old. 


# 


SERVICE 


A  RESPONSIBILITY  OF 
CITIZENSHIP 


Ill 


SERVICE  A  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  CITIZENSHIP 

A  second  matter  in  respect  to  the  responsi¬ 
bilities  of  a  citizen^  worthy  of  notice,  is  the 
duty  of  service.  It  may  be  said  that  in  a  cer¬ 
tain  sense  this  form  of  obligation  attends  every 
relation  and  is  binding  on  both  parties  thereto. 
There  is  no  one  so  high  and  none  so  low  as 
not  to  owe  the  duty  of  service.  ''  I  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister  unto  oth¬ 
ers/^  said  the  Master,  and  to  indicate  the  nobil¬ 
ity  and  worth  of  service.  He  added,  ^‘he  who 
would  be  chiefest  among  you  let  him  he  servant 
of  all.’’  But  while  service  may  be  said  to  at¬ 
tend  every  relation  and  be  one  element  in  its 
obligations  yet  the  kinds  and  modes  of  service 
vary  with  the  relation.  The  service  which  a 
child  is  called  upon  to  render  to  its  parent  is 
different  from  that  which  a  citizen  owes  to  the 

nation.  And  so  I  proceed  to  mention  some  of 

61 


62 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


the  kinds  of  service  which  the  citizen  owes  to 
the  nation_,  and  shall  then  consider  the  spirit 
and  manner  in  which  those  services  should  be 
rendered. 

There  are  certain  services  which  are  willing¬ 
ly  rendered.  For  instance,  the  average  Amer¬ 
ican  is  willing  to  hold  office,  discharge  its  duties 
and  receive  its  emoluments.  We  seldom  have 
to  force  a  man  to  take  office.  Undoubtedly  the 
discharge  of  the  duties  of  an  office  to  which  one 
is  called  by  his  fellow-citizens  is  an  act  of  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  nation.  It  may  be  a  conspicuous 
act  and  sometimes  quite  profitable.  At  any 
rate,  a  glamour  surrounds  the  holding  of  office, 
which  makes  it  very  acceptable  to  many.  So, 
it  seems  almost  a  matter  of  supererogation  to 
say  that  when  one  is  elected  or  appointed  to  an 
office  he  owes  to  the  nation  the  duty  of  dis¬ 
charging  its  functions.  Yet  holding  and  faith¬ 
fully  performing  all  the  duties  of  an  office  is 
not  merely  a  privilege ;  it  is  an  obligation,  and 
one  whose  neglect  may  be  punished  criminally. 
I  have  never  known  an  instance  of  a  man  being 
prosecuted  for  refusing  to  accept  the  office  of 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


63 


United  States  Senator.  No  man  need  lie 
awake  worrying  about  his  liability  to  criminal 
process  if  he  declines  to  accept  the  office  of  gov¬ 
ernor.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  more  likely  to 
be  applauded  for  repudiating  the  obligation 
which  election  to  office  imposes  than  to  be 
prosecuted  therefor.  There  are  quite  a  num¬ 
ber  always  willing  to  take  the  burden  off  his 
shoulders.  And  yet  there  are  records  of  judi¬ 
cial  prosecution  and  punishment  for  the  failure 
to  accept  and  discharge  the  duties  of  certain 
minor  offices.  The  position  of  road  overseer  or 
constable  is  not  congenial  to  many,  and  not 
unnaturally  they  seek  to  escape  therefrom. 
Tenacious  of  the  right  to  hold  each  one  to  the 
duties  of  an  office  to  which  he  has  been  elected 
the  English  Parliament  has  a  pleasant  way  of 
enabling  a  man  to  resign  his  seat  therein. 
While  private  business  may  not  justify  such 
resignation  it  is  held  that  he  may  vacate  that 
office  if  he  accepts  another  of  equal  dignity; 
and  so  when  a  member  of  Parliament  de¬ 
sires  to  resign  he  secures  an  appointment  to 
the  Stewardship  of  the  Chiltern  Hundreds, 


64 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


and  then  may  surrender  his  place  in  Parlia¬ 
ment. 

Another  ease  in  which  there  is  a  duty  of  ser¬ 
vice,  and  one  enforced  by  law,  is  that  connected 
with  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  na¬ 
tion.  He  who  enters  either,  whether  volun¬ 
tarily  or  by  means  of  a  draft,  must  endure  all 
its  dangers  and  toils.  He  may  not  avoid  them 
without  rendering  himself  amenable  to  punish¬ 
ment.  This  proceeds  upon  the  theory  that  the 
nation,  to  protect  its  life  and  enforce  its  laws, 
may  compel  the  active  effort  of  all  its  citizens. 
But  believing  that  the  time  will  come  when  the 
war-drum  shall  beat  no  longer  and  the  battle- 
flags  be  furled,  I  do  not  stop  to  enlarge  upon 
the  special  duties  of  military  service. 

One  important  service  is  connected  with  the 
administration  of  justice.  We  are  called  upon 
to  act  as  witnesses  and  jurors.  How  many 
gladly  avoid  the  discharge  of  those  duties  ?  It 
is  astonishing  when  a  jury  list  is  summoned 
to  find  how  many  sick  people  there  are  on  it. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  they  are  sick.  I  think  I 
should  be.  The  sickness  of  a  juror  is  like  the 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


65 


Sunday  headache,  which  used  to  be  so  common 
in  college.  The  jury  system  as  at  present  ad¬ 
ministered,  in  many  States  at  least,  is  little 
more  than  a  relic  of  semi-civilized  conditions. 
The  juror  is  too  often  treated  as  a  criminal,  or 
suspected  of  an  intention  to  become  one.  Shut 
up  at  night,  as  if  for  fear  he  may  become  a 
fugitive  from  justice,  given  a  compensation 
scarcely  exceeding  that  which  a  day  laborer  re¬ 
ceives,  listening  for  days  to  witnesses  who  are 
sometimes  stupid  and  often  confusing,  annoyed 
by  the  wearisome  wrangles  between  attorneys 
concerning  the  admission  or  rejection  of  testi¬ 
mony,  I  do  not  wonder  that  a  business  man 
seeks  to  avoid  its  burdens,  and  I  hope  that  the 
time  will  come  when  a  juror  will  be  treated  as 
though  he  were  an  honest  man,  denied  no  more 
of  the  comforts  of  home  than  the  judge  him¬ 
self,  paid  that  which  is  an  adequate  compensa¬ 
tion  for  his  time  and  when  the  unanimity  now 
required  and  which  prompts  to  all  the  strenu¬ 
ous  effort  to  guard  against  undue  influences 
upon  one,  or  to  secure  the  kindly  assistance  of 
one-a  unanimity  which  is  called  for  in  scarce- 


66 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


ly  any  other  tribunal  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
— shall  give  way  to  a  system  in  which  the  con¬ 
currence  of  a  reasonable  majority  of  the  jurors 
shall  determine  the  verdict.  So_,  a  witness  is 
often  insulted  by  opposing  counsel.  He  is  in¬ 
terrogated  as  though  he  were  presumably  a 
liar,  and  questions  are  put  to  him  with  insinua¬ 
tions  and  in  a  manner  which  every  honorable 
man  feels  like  resenting.  But  notwithstanding 
all  the  disagreeable  features  which  attend  ser¬ 
vice  as  a  witness  or  juror  it  is  an  obligation 
resting  upon  the  citizen,  and  one  which  as  a 
duty  he  should  not  ignore.  Let  him  strive  for 
reformation,  but  meantime  not  make  himself  a 
delinquent. 

Again,  there  is  service  at  the  primaries  and 
the  polls.  No  more  important  duty  rests  upon 
the  citizen.  The  great  problem  of  government 
by  the  people  depends  for  its  wise  solution  upon 
the  fidelity  with  which  this  service  is  per¬ 
formed.  I  know  there  are  many  to  whom  a 
primary  is  a  matter  of  no  moment,  a  campaign 
nothing  better  than  a  circus,  an  election  day 
only  a  holiday ;  but  to  him  who  appreciates  the 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


67 


value  of  government  by  the  people,  who  knows 
that  here,  in  the  first  instance,  at  least,  the 
policy  of  such  government  is  to  be  settled,  who 
appreciates  the  dignity  of  American  citizenship 
and  his  personal  responsibility  for  the  success¬ 
ful  outcome  of  the  great  problem;  to  him  the 
primary  and  the  polls  are  sacred  places,  and 
the  service  he  renders  there  is  as  important  as 
any  rendered  on  the  battle-field  or  in  the  halls 
of  Congress.  Unfortunately,  too  often,  the 
one  who  is  most  competent  to  render  efficient 
service  in  these  directions  is  the  one  who 
neglects  it.  He  does  not  like  the  atmosphere 
of  the  primary  or  the  surroundings  of  the  polls. 
Conscious  of  education  and  intelligence  he  is 
afflicted  with  a  daintiness  which  leads  him  to 
avoid  the  touch  of  common  people.  Then 
when  the  outcome  does  not  accord  with  his 
views  he  mourns  over  the  decadence  of  the 
American  people,  and  the  infelicities  of  our 
politics. 

One  service  more  I  must  mention,  and  that 
is  service  in  the  payment  of  taxes.  I  have  yet 
to  meet  the  man  whose  heart  was  filled  with 


68 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


gratitude  at  the  privilege  of  paying  taxes. 
While  many  unhesitatingly  pay  them  and  feel 
that  in  so  doing  they  are  discharging  but  a 
common  obligation  of  all,  you  are  not  likely  to 
find  one  overfiowing  with  effusion  of  joy  be¬ 
cause  he  has  been  permitted  to  contribute  so 
much  money  to  the  government.  Every  one 
knows  that  the  pecuniary  burdens  we  call  taxes 
must  be  borne;  the  individual  must  contribute 
in  order  that  the  government  may  continue, 
and  yet  the  ordinary  tax-payer  is  willing  that 
his  neighbor  shall  bear  this  burden.  His 
patriotism  in  this  respect  is  like  that  of  Arte- 
mus  Ward  in  the  civil  war,  a  willingness  to 
have  all  his  wife’s  relations  drafted.  There 
has  always  been  great  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  the  things  to  be  taxed  and  the  modes  of  tax¬ 
ation.  Out  of  these  differences  have  arisen 
some  of  the  political  parties  of  the  day,  and 
disputes  concerning  these  questions  have  been 
sharp  both  in  legislative  and  judicial  halls. 
There  is  a  constant  effort  by  many  to  shift  by 
legislation  the  burdens  of  taxation  to  the  shoul¬ 
ders  of  others,  and  when  they  fail  in  that  legis- 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


69 


lation  they  pursue  many  a  curious  and  winding 
way  in  efforts  to  escape  those  burdens. 

I  have  enumerated  these  various  forms  in 
which  service  is  to  be  rendered  by  the  citizen 
to  the  State  in  order  that  the  scope  thereof 
may  be  clearly  understood.  I  do  not  mean  that 
these  are  all  the  services  which  are  due  from 
the  citizen,  but  they  are  enough  to  present  the 
matter  to  the  mind.  As  is  obvious,  these  obli¬ 
gations  of  service  are  not  all  continuous.  They 
are  not  pressing  upon  the  citizen  at  all  times, 
nor  do  they  rest  upon  all  alike.  And  yet  they 
are  services  which  may  be  called  for,  and  in 
respect  to  them  I  notice  these  things . 

First,  whenever  due  they  should  be  willingly 
rendered,  for  every  failure  impairs  to  that  ex¬ 
tent  the  ability  of  the  nation  to  do  and  be  for 
the  citizen  all  that  it  should  do  and  be.  The 
organization  of  the  political  institution  which 
we  call  the  nation  is  for  the  purpose  of  secur¬ 
ing  the  highest  well-being  of  all  the  individuals 
composing  it.  As  declared  in  the  Preamble  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  it  is  or¬ 
dained  to  establish  justice,  ensure  domestic 


70 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defence, 
promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos¬ 
terity/^  In  order  that  the  nation  may  the 
most  perfectly  discharge  its  duty  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  carry  into  full  effect  the  purpose  for 
which  it  was  organized  it  is  essential  that  each 
citizen  and  all  citizens  should  render  the 
various  services  which  each  and  all  are  called 
upon  to  render,  whenever  they  are  so  called 
upon;  and  that  they  should  render  them  will¬ 
ingly.  They  should  lift  their  eyes  above  the 
narrow  horizon  of  their  own  convenience,  their 
own  temporary  comfort  or  annoyance,  and  see 
that  in  the  performance  of  those  duties  they 
are  simply  doing  their  part  in  helping  the  na¬ 
tion  to  its  highest  usefulness,  and  securing  to 
it  the  capacity  for  the  greatest  blessings  to 
themselves  and  their  posterity. 

Again,  it  should  be  intelligent  service.  The 
workings  of  that  great  machine  called  the  gov¬ 
ernment  are  not  mechanical.  Its  various  parts 
are  not  fastened  to  a  central  wheel  by  pulleys 
and  bolts,  wheels  and  cogs,  so  that  when  once 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


71 


that  central  wheel  is  started  all  move  in  unison 
with  mechanical  precision.  The  forces  which 
permeate  and  move  the  life  of  the  nation  are 
intellectual  and  moral.  Each  one  who  takes 
his  part  in  doing  any  service  to  the  nation 
must,  in  order  to  fully  discharge  his  duty,  act 
with  all  the  intelligence  he  possesses.  Science 
may  measure  and  control  the  forces  which 
move  inert  lifeless  matter,  but  science  can  put 
no  chain  or  band  around  those  forces  which 
start  within  the  human  soul  and  which  prompt 
each  individual  to  his  activities.  In  order  that 
the  aggregate  of  the  forces  which  move  the  na¬ 
tion  may  work  out  the  best  it  is  all  important 
that  he  who  moves  any  of  them,  or  touches  the 
great  springs  of  its  life,  shall  have  a  clear  un¬ 
derstanding  of  what  he  is  doing  and  the  re¬ 
sults  of  his  action,  and  so  become  an  intelli¬ 
gent  factor  in  that  life.  Very  different  is  the 
condition  of  a  nation  like  this  from  that  which 
obtains  in  an  absolute  monarchy  where  the 
directing  force,  the  intellectual  power,  is  cen¬ 
tred  in  an  individual  or  a  handful  while  the 
great  mass  of  the  individuals  are  simply  pawns 


72 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


moved  by  the  master  minds  on  the  national 
chessboard.  Here  each  man  is  an  active  ruler. 
Upon  him  rests  the  responsibility  of  govern¬ 
ment,  and  out  of  the  commingled  thoughts  and 
purposes  of  all  comes  the  final  movement  of  the 
nation.  Nor  is  the  obligation  of  intelligent 
service  limited  to  the  higher  forms  of  service 
and  not  binding  on  those  who  discharge  those 
of  less  importance.  It  may  require  a  superior 
talent,  a  larger  knowledge,  to  make  a  great 
general  than  a  private  soldier,  but  all  history 
attests  that  the  intelligent  soldier,  the  one  who 
discharges  the  duties  of  that  service  thought¬ 
fully,  is  of  far  more  value  than  one  who  is  stu¬ 
pid  and  ignorant.  In  battle,  as  everywhere 
else,  the  personal  factor  becomes  of  no  small 
moment,  and  intelligent  service  there  on  the 
part  of  all  is,  like  intelligent  service  elsewhere, 
a  help  to  success. 

And  if  intelligent  service  is  called  for  from 
any,  surely  it  is  from  those  who  have  had  the 
benefit  of  a  liberal  education.  The  hod-carrier, 
the  section  hand,  the  street-cleaner,  may  say 
that  his  range  of  knowledge  is  limited.  He  has 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


73 


not  had  the  opportunities  of  others  for  study, 
but  the  college  graduate  can  make  no  such  de¬ 
fence.  Of  all  citizens  he  is  the  one  to  whom 
is  given  the  largest  opportunity  for  acquiring 
knowledge,  and  is  the  last  man  in  the  nation 
who  can  plead  ignorance  as  an  excuse  for  lack 
of  intelligent  service.  He,  at  least  in  this  re¬ 
spect,  is  charged  with  the  highest  responsibil¬ 
ity.  He  goes  out  from  college  halls  an  am¬ 
bassador  from  a  great  court  of  learning,  whose 
diploma  he  carries  as  his  credentials.  He  is 
received,  and  rightfully  received,  as  possessed 
of  knowledge  and  the  power  which  comes  there¬ 
from.  Ignorance  is  to  him  an  unconscionable 
plea.  The  graduate  from  this  university  who 
when  called  upon  to  render  service  writes  ig¬ 
norance  as  his  excuse  for  mistake  casts  a  libel 
on  his  alma  mater.  If  you  have  no  moral 
character  you  may  be  a  scoundrel,  but  never 
ask  the  community  to  believe  that  a  Yale  grad¬ 
uate  is  a  fool. 

Again,  it  should  be  unselfish  and  conscien¬ 
tious  service.  I  endeavored  to  show  in  my  last 
lecture  that  high  personal  character  is  one  of 


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AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


the  obligations  of  the  citizen,  and  that  it  is  all- 
important  to  the  life  of  the  nation.  Along  the 
same  line  of  thought,  it  must  be  said  that  un¬ 
selfish  and  conscientious  action  is  one  of  the 
important  elements  in  a  full  discharge  of  the 
obligations  of  service.  The  thought  that  it  is 
the  prime  purpose  to  get  as  much  out  of  life 
and  give  as  little  to  it  as  possible  is  unworthy 
a  manly  man,  and  especially  one  who  has  been 
given  great  advantages  in  preparing  for  life. 
A  citizen  should  be  conscientious  in  the  dis¬ 
charge  not  only  of  duties  of  high  position  but 
in  the  discharge  of  every  kind  of  service  called 
for.  We  expect  a  president,  a  governor,  or  a 
judge,  to  be  conscientious.  We  have  an  equal 
right  to  call  upon  the  humblest  citizen  to  be 
likewise.  He  should  be  conscientious  as  a 
juror,  conscientious  as  a  road  overseer,  con¬ 
scientious  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  as  a 
voter  and  in  the  payment  of  taxes.  That  there 
is  not  infrequently  great  lacking  in  this  regard 
in  minor  matters  is  obvious. 

A  friend  told  me  this  of  the  experience  of 
one  of  the  States :  It  had  been  the  habit  in  that 


OBLIGATIOlSr  OF  SERVICE 


75 


State  to  leave  the  listing  of  personal  property 
to  the  unsworn  statement  of  the  tax-payer. 
The  smallness  of  the  assessment  roll  attracted 
attention,  and  finally  an  act  was  passed  requir¬ 
ing  the  return  by  each  tax-payer  to  be  verified 
by  his  oath.  The  first  year  the  aggregate  re¬ 
turn  of  personal  property  was  doubled,  but  the 
year  thereafter  it  diminished  a  little,  and  stead¬ 
ily  from  year  to  year  it  grew  less  and  less.  As 
the  State  was  one  where  property  changes  are 
slight  the  only  satisfactory  explanation  was 
that  the  first  year  the  conscience  of  the  tax¬ 
payer  pricked  him  and  he  made  something  like 
a  truthful  statement.  The  next  year  his  con¬ 
science  hardened  and  he  was  willing  to  drop  a 
little,  and  so  from  year  to  year  the  hardening 
process  went  on  and  the  assessment  roll  went 
down. 

Does  any  one  at  all  familiar  with  our  na¬ 
tional  life  doubt  that  that  which  is  suggested 
by  this  illustration  finds  abundant  repetition 
everywhere?  The  frequent  justification  is  that 
a  neighbor  does  the  same,  or  that  there  is  a 
common  understanding  in  the  community  to 
that  efiect. 


76 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


In  another  direction  is  also  witnessed  a  fre¬ 
quent  disregard  of  the  obligations  of  conscien¬ 
tious  service,  and  that  is  in  judicial  proceed¬ 
ings.  The  juror  yields  his  judgment  to  his 
prejudices.  Especially  is  this  true  (and  true 
not  merely  of  jurors  but  of  witnesses)  in  those 
actions  in  which  there  is  an  effort  by  law  to 
restrain  the  vices  of  the  community.  It  has 
sometimes  been,  perhaps  not  extravagantly, 
stated  that  prohibition  laws  are  the  greatest  in¬ 
centive  to  perjury  that  the  country  affords. 
Certain  it  is  that  offences  against  those  laws  are 
exceedingly  difficult  of  successful  prosecution. 
The  memory  of  witnesses  is  lamentably  weak 
and  the  reasonable  doubts  of  jurors  are  multi¬ 
plied  and  magnified.  Both  witnesses  and  ju¬ 
rors  are  parleying  with  conscience,  and  their 
action  too  often  springs  from  objection  to  the 
law  rather  than  from  a  failure  of  memory  or 
ignorance  of  testimony. 

And  here  I  must  notice  that  which  is  attract¬ 
ing  growing  attention,  to-wit,  the  so-called 
commercialism  in  politics.  That  it  exists,  that 
it  is  an  evil,  that  it  is  freighted  with  peril,  no 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


77 


intelligent  person  questions.  Possibly  the  ex¬ 
tent  to  which  it  exists  is  exaggerated.  It  is 
easy  for  a  beaten  party  or  candidate  to  charge 
that  defeat  is  owing  to  the  use  of  money. 
These  things  must  also  be  borne  in  mind :  The 
real  cost  of  carrying  on  a  political  campaign  is 
great ;  halls  are  to  be  hired ;  speakers  are  to  be 
employed;  brass  bands  and  pyrotechnique  dis¬ 
plays  attend  parades  and  conventions;  enor¬ 
mous  masses  of  publications  are  circulated. 
And  these  campaigns  are  carried  on  in  modern 
military  methods,  with  a  general  commander, 
whose  various  lieutenants  and  agents  take  their 
bidding  from  the  central  authority  and  act  as 
officers  of  the  great  political  army.  In  this  re¬ 
spect  campaigns  differ  from  those  of  fifty  years 
ago,  for  they  were  more  in  the  nature  of  spon¬ 
taneous  inexpensive  movements  by  separate 
communities  having  a  common  purpose.  Now 
a  campaign  along  these  new  lines  necessarily 
involves  large  expenditures,  and  expenditures 
which  cannot  be  denounced  as  corrupt. 
Whether  in  all  respects  this  mode  of  campaign¬ 
ing  is  better  than  that  which  existed  in  days 


78 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


gone  by  may  be  doubted,  but  it  is  far  from  just 
to  denounce  the  expenditures  made  in  conse¬ 
quence  thereof  as  evidences  of  corruption.  It 
must  also  be  remembered  that  the  pecuniary 
interests  which  are  involved  are  enormous,  that 
money  is  more  abundant,  that  many  interested 
can  easily  afford  and  are  willing  to  contribute, 
so  that  large  sums  pass  into  the  hands  of  party 
managers,  and  with  their  possession  comes  the 
temptation  to  make  a  display.  And  yet,  mak¬ 
ing  all  fair  allowances  for  these  various  mat¬ 
ters,  no  one  can  doubt  that  money  is  becoming 
a  factor,  and  a  hurtful  factor,  in  our  politics. 
Side  by  side  with  this  is  also  the  fact  that,  with 
the  change  in  our  capital  cities  in  the  styles 
and  modes  of  living,  the  cost  thereof  has  be¬ 
come  greater,  salaries  of  public  officials  are 
more  inadequate,  and  there  is  the  ever-pressing 
temptation  to  utilize  official  position  in  such 
way  that  one  may  go  out  of  politics  no  worse 
off  at  least  pecuniarily  than  when  he  went  in. 
I  have  not  time  to  amplify  on  this  subject,  to 
detail  the  evidences  of  the  existence  of  this  evil, 
to  repeat  the  stories  which  are  found  in  the 


OBLIGATION'  OF  SERVICE 


79 


daily  papers,  stories  many  of  which  I  am  glad 
to  believe  are  hut  stories,  though  perhaps  too 
often,  like  the  historical  novel,  fiction  founded 
upon  fact.  What  I  do  wish  to  emphasize  is 
that  this  evil  exists  and  that  it  is  more  of  an 
evil  than  it  was  in  days  gone  by. 

As  against  this,  as  well  as  against  all  other 
like  evils,  I  appeal  to  the  American  sense  of  the 
value  and  duty  of  high,  conscientious  service. 
Each  one  must  realize  that  so  far  as  he  stands 
proof  against  its  seductive  power,  keeping  him¬ 
self  aloof  from  its  contaminating  touch,  he  is 
doing  his  part  to  stay  its  curse  and  take  the 
bitterness  of  the  sting  from  the  frequent  sneer 
that  in  American  politics  the  dollar  is  more 
than  the  man.  We  must  impress  upon  all  the 
solemn  fact  that  the  voting  booth  is  the  temple 
of  American  institutions.  No  single  tribe  or 
family  is  chosen  to  watch  the  sacred  fires  ever¬ 
more  burning  on  its  altars,  or  to  tend  in  its 
services.  Each  one  of  us  is  a  priest.  To  each 
is  given  the  care  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant. 
Each  one  ministers  at  its  altars.  He  who  min¬ 
isters  at  those  altars  with  hands  stained  with 


80 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


corruption  is  like  one  who  sitteth  at  the  table 
of  the  Lord  and  eateth  and  drinketh  unworth¬ 
ily,  and  thus  eateth  and  drinketh  damnation. 

Along  the  street 
The  shadows  meet 
Of  Destiny,  whose  hands  conceal 
The  molds  of  fate 
That  shape  the  State, 

And  make  or  mar  the  common  weal. 

Around  I  see 
The  powers  that  be, 

I  stand  by  Empire’s  primal  springs  ; 

And  princes  meet 
In  every  street. 

And  hear  the  tread  of  uncrowned  kings  ! 

Not  lightly  fall 
Beyond  recall 

The  written  scrolls  a  breath  can  float ; 

The  crowning  fact. 

The  kingliest  act. 

Of  Freedom  is  the  Freeman’s  vote  I 

Our  hearts  grow  cold, 

We  lightly  hold 

A  right  which  brave  men  died  to  gain ; 

The  stake,  the  cord. 

The  axe,  the  sword. 

Grim  nurses  at  its  birth  of  pain. 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


81 


The  shadow  rend, 

And  o’er  us  bend, 

O  martyrs,  with  your  crowns  and  palms  ; 
Breathe  through  these  throngs 
Your  battle  songs. 

Your  scaffold  prayers  and  dungeon  psalms  ! 

Look  from  the  sky. 

Like  God’s  great  eye. 

Thou  solemn  moon,  with  searching  beam, 
Till  in  the  sight 
Of  thy  pure  light 

Our  mean  self-seekings  meaner  seem. 

Shame  from  our  hearts 
Unworthy  arts, 

The  fraud  designed,  the  purpose  dark ; 

And  smite  away 
The  hands  we  lay 
Profanely  on  the  sacred  ark. 

To  party  claims 
And  private  aims 
Reveal  that  august  face  of  Truth, 

Whereto  are  given 
The  age  of  heaven, 

The  beauty  of  immortal  youth. 

So  shall  our  voice 
Of  sovereign  choice 
Swell  the  deep  bass  of  duty  done. 


82 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


And  strike  the  key 
Of  time  to  be, 

When  God  and  man  shall  speak  as  one  ! 

I  do  not  doubt  the  outcome.  Nor  do  I  rest 
my  faith  on  Matthew  Arnold’s  idea  of  a  saving 
remnant.  The  great  body  of  the  American 
people  are  still  keenly  alive  to  a  sense  of  the 
solemnity  of  this  obligation  of  service.  They 
do  not  more  than  half  believe  the  stories  that 
fill  our  press.  They  are  a  patient,  enduring 
people.  They  willingly  condone  offences,  be¬ 
lieving  that  the  shame  which  attends  will  be 
both  punishment  to  the  individual  and  check 
against  repetition.  But  if  ever  convinced  that 
commercialism  is  controlling  our  political  life 
they  will  rise  in  their  wrath  and  take  swiftest 
and  sternest  vengeance  on  all  who  are  in  facir 
or  are  believed  to  be  tainted  with  this  curse. 

Finally,  let  me  add,  live  your  life  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  nobility  of  the  citizen’s  service.  It 
is,  of  course,  trite  to  say  that  every  honest  ser¬ 
vice  is  noble,  to  whomsoever  and  in  whatsoever 
cause  rendered;  but  if  we  link  in  our  minds 
the  service  we  render  with  the  cause  to  which 


OBLIGATION  OF  SERVICE 


83 


it  is  rendered  we  may  often  have  a  clearer 
vision  of  its  real  nobility.  We  see  not  merely 
that  we  are  rendering  willing,  intelligent,  and 
conscientious  service,  and  therefore  have  the 
peace  of  mind  which  comes  from  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  duty  done,  but  we  become  filled  with 
the  greatness  of  that  to  which  the  service  is 
rendered,  and  whose  well-being  finds  its  highest 
promise  in  the  fidelity  of  our  efforts,  and  so 
there  comes  to  us  as  in  no  other  way  a  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  nobility  of  that  service.  And  this 
sense  of  nobility  extends  to  every  kind  of  ser¬ 
vice  the  citizen  may  render,  no  matter  whether 
it  may  be  what  the  world  calls  high  or  what  it 
may  regard  as  low.  The  end  ennobles  the 
work.  Paul  had  that  idea  when,  in  the  12th 
Chapter  of  the  1st  Corinthians,  he  illustrated 
the  co-working  of  all  Christians  to  the  same  end 
in  different  services  by  a  comparison  of  the 
body  with  all  its  members,  saying :  ''  But  now 
are  they  many  members,  yet  but  one  body. 
And  the  eye  cannot  say  unto  the  hand,  I  have 
no  need  of  thee :  nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet, 
I  have  no  need  of  you.  Nay,  much  more  those 


84 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


members  of  the  body,  which  seem  to  be  more 
feeble,  are  necessary.  .  .  .  And  whether 

one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with 
it;  or  one  member  be  honored,  all  the  members 
rejoice  with  it.”  Equally,  therefore,  may  he 
who  is  rendering  the  humblest  form  of  service 
to  this  great  Eepublic  rejoice  as  being  a  co¬ 
worker  with  him  who  is  performing  the  high¬ 
est,  assured  that  without  fidelity  on  his  part 
the  efforts  of  others  will  lose  something  of  their 
value,  and  sure  that  he  equallv  with  them  is 
a  part  of  this  nation  and  a  maker  of  its  destiny. 
In  the  days  of  the  Caesars  am  a  Eoman 
citizen  ”  was  a  proud,  exultant  declaration. 
It  was  protection.  It  was  more;  it  was  honor 
and  glory.  Twenty  centuries  of  advancing 
civilization  have  given  to  the  declaration,  ^^I 
am  an  American  citizen  ”  a  higher  and  a  nobler 
place.  It  stands  to-day  in  the  forefront  of 
earthly  titles.  It  proclaims  a  sharing  in  the 
greatest  opportunities.  It  is  a  trumpet-call  to 
the  highest  fidelity.  It  is  the  diploma  of  the 
world,  the  highest  which  humanity  has  to 
bestow. 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


\ 


■A 


IV 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 

The  next  form  of  obligation  to  which  I  wish 
to  call  your  attention  is  that  of  obedience.  It 
is  a  necessity  of  every  organized  community 
that  there  should  be  laws  and  rules  to  control 
the  actions  of  individuals.  Without  them  a 
state  of  anarchy  would  exist,  each  man  being  a 
law  unto  himself,  and  the  diverse  purposes  and 
wishes  bringing  about  constant  collisions.  It 
is  true  laws  and  rules  place  some  restraint  on 
human  action,  but  it  does  not  follow  therefrom 
that  they  at  all  interfere  with  liberty  in  its 
truest  sense.  For  liberty  does  not  imply  li¬ 
cense,  absolute  freedom  of  action,  but  simply 
the  right  to  do  that  which  one  deems  best,  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  limitation  that  it  does  not  interfere 
with  the  equal  rights  of  other  members  of  the 
community.  Of  course  a  Robinson  Crusoe 

may  have  absolute  freedom,  for  alone  on  an 

87 


88 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


island  there  is  no  one  having  rights  to  be 
abridged  by  anything  he  may  do.  And,  paren¬ 
thetically  I  may  say,  if  every  one  who  feels  that 
the  slight  restraints  of  the  law  are  trespasses 
upon  his  liberty  would  hie  away  to  some  lonely 
island  in  the  South  Seas  and  there  luxuriate 
in  the  liberty  he  craves,  our  benedictions  would 
go  with  him  as  well  as  our  prayers  that  he  never 
return.  But  when  even  his  man  Friday  comes 
to  live  with  Crusoe  then  his  absolute  freedom 
of  action  must  stop  on  the  hither  side  of  Fri¬ 
day’s  rights.  And  each  additional  person  com¬ 
ing  to  live  with  or  near  him,  having  his  own 
rights  may  by  virtue  thereof  somewhat  restrain 
Crusoe’s  action.  So  it  is  that  the  more  there 
are  in  a  community  and  the  more  closely  they 
live  together,  the  more  numerous  are  the  neces¬ 
sary  restraints  upon  the  action  of  each.  This 
necessity  of  restraint  is  the  source  of  that  mys¬ 
terious  and  illy  defined  attribute  of  government 
which  we  call  the  police  power,  a  power  which 
always  has  a  wider  field  of  action  in  a  city  than 
in  a  village,  and  in  a  village  than  in  a  farming 
neighborhood. 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


89 


In  a  government  by  the  people  law  is  the  ex¬ 
pressed  will  of  the  majority.  Back  of  it  stands 
the  power  of  the  organized  community.  That 
power  exists  to  compel  obedience  to  law,  and  to 
many,  therefore,  law  stands  simply  as  the  rep¬ 
resentation  of  force;  something  which  must  be 
yielded  to,  not  because  there  is  a  pleasure  in 
so  doing  but  because  there  is  a  necessity  there¬ 
for  and  unfortunate  penalties  for  not  yielding. 
So,  to  them  law  is  something  which  always 
stands  in  antagonism.  The  officers  of  the  law 
are  their  enemies,  and  they  feel  a  secret  pleas¬ 
ure  whenever  they  see  them  baffled  in  their  ef¬ 
forts  to  execute  it.  It  is  popular  to  sneer  at 
and  ridicule  the  policeman,  although  without 
him  we  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  worst 
elements. 

It  often  happens  that  the  meaning  of  a  law 
is  debatable,  is  disputed.  Within  the  nation 
we  have  tribunals  to  determine  such  matters  of 
dispute,  but  if  a  tribunal  decides  the  meaning 
against  our  contention,  not  infrequently  then 
that  tribunal  becomes  itself  the  object  of  an¬ 
tagonism,  and  we  look  upon  it  as  simply  an- 


90 


AMERICAN-  CITIZENSHIP 


other  instrumentality  by  which  we  are  coerced 
into  that  which  we  do  not  wish  and  declare 
that  we  have  become  again  the  victims  of  mere 
arbitrary  power. 

I  may  here  note  in  passing  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  that  law  which  obtains  within  a  nation, 
or  municipal  law  as  it  is  called,  and  interna¬ 
tional  law,  the  body  of  rules  which  regulate  the 
intercourse  of  nations.  In  respect  to  the  lat¬ 
ter,  there  is  neither  tribunal  to  determine  what 
is  the  law,  nor  organized  force  to  compel  obedi¬ 
ence.  The  separate  nations  construe  for  them¬ 
selves,  and,  when  selfish  interests  require,  abide 
by  their  own  interpretations,  or  defiantly  re¬ 
pudiate  the  law  entirely.  The  contrast  be¬ 
tween  that  condition  and  that  of  law  within  a. 
nation  where  there  is  a  tribunal  to  determine 
the  meaning  and  a  power  to  enforce  obedience 
is  obvious. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  are  no  cir¬ 
cumstances  under  which  disobedience  to  law 
may  become  a  duty.  Half  a  century  ago  there 
was  great  discussion  in  this  country  upon  the 
question  of  the  higher  law,’’  and  that  there 


OBLIGATION^  OF  OBEDIENCE 


91 


is  a  higher  law  I  have  no  doubt.  The  law  of 
righteousness  carries  a  demand  of  obedience 
above  any  mere  human  enactment,  but  never¬ 
theless  the  instances  in  which  the  higher  law 
will  conflict  with  the  law  of  the  nation  are  so 
rare  that  it  does  not  seem  profitable  to  use  much 
time  in  discussing  them.  It  certainly  ill  be¬ 
comes  one  as  an  excuse  for  disobedience  to  create 
a  mere  imaginary  conflict  between  municipal 
and  the  higher  law.  Human  nature  is  so  consti¬ 
tuted  that  when  a  law  does  not  suit  us  we  look 
with  great  complacency  upon  the  suggestion 
that  it  conflicts  with  some  higher  law,  and  that, 
therefore,  we  ought  to  disobey  it.  Often  one 
fancies  that  he  has  grave  religious  doubts  when 
it  is  a  mere  matter  of  a  disordered  liver.  As 
Mrs.  Bateman,  one  of  the  characters  in  The 
Farringdons,’’  says  of  husbands  in  general,  and 
hers  in  particular : 

^^The  very  best  of  them  don’t  properly 
know  the  difference  between  their  souls  and 
their  stomachs;  and  they  fancy  that  they  are 
a-wrestling  with  their  doubts,  when  really  it  is 
their  dinners  that  are  a-wrestling  with  them. 


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Now  take  Bateman  hisself,  and  a  kinder  hus¬ 
band  or  a  better  Methodist  never  drew  breath; 
yet  so  sure  as  he  touches  a  bit  of  pork,  he  be¬ 
gins  to  worry  hisself  about  the  doctrine  of  Elec¬ 
tion  till  there’s  no  living  with  him.  .  .  . 

He’ll  sit  in  the  front  parlor  and  engage  in 
prayer  for  hours  at  a  time,  till  I  says  to  him, 
^Bateman,’  says  I,  ^  I’d  be  ashamed  to  go 
troubling  the  Lord  with  a  prayer  when  a  pinch 
o’  carbonate  of  soda  would  set  things  straight 
again.’  ” 

One  may  often  wisely  solve  the  doubtful 
conflict  in  his  mind  between  duties  as  did  the 
good  Quaker  on  shipboard  when  the  vessel  was 
attacked  by  pirates.  A  man  of  peace,  he  would 
do  no  flghting,  but  as  he  saw  a  pirate  climb¬ 
ing  up  the  side  of  the  vessel  by  a  rope,  he  said 
to  him,  Friend,  dost  thou  wish  the  rope  ? 
Thou  shalt  have  it,”  and  suiting  the  action  to 
the  word  drew  his  knife,  cut  the  rope  and 
dropped  both  rope  and  pirate  into  the  ocean. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  obedience  im¬ 
plies  a  mere  passive  condition — a  simple  re¬ 
fraining  from  doing  things  forbidden  by  stat- 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


93 


ute.  It  is  an  active  virtue.  The  law  com¬ 
mands  as  well  as  forbids;  and  obedience  re¬ 
quires  the  doing  of  the  act  which  the  law 
commands  as  well  as  the  not  doing  that  which 
it  forbids.  As  I  indicated  in  my  last  lecture, 
the  nation  calls  for  various  kinds  of  service, 
and  in  the  truest  sense  a  citizen  never  fulfils 
his  obligation  of  obedience  unless  he  renders 
those  services.  He  may  not  claim  that  he  has 
discharged  his  whole  obligation  by  proof  that 
he  has  never  broken  a  single  clause  of  the  penal 
code.  It  is  the  willing  active  effort  that  makes 
obedience  a  virtue.  Submission  is  not  the 
whole.  That  may  spring  from  indifference  or 
cowardice.  It  indicates  no  appreciation  of 
the  dignities  or  duties  of  citizenship.  In  a 
certain  sense  it  may  be  true,  as  the  blind  Mil- 
ton  wrote,  “  they  also  serve  who  only  stand 
and  waiV^  but  in  this  eager,  aspiring,  tumultu¬ 
ous  day  of  ours,  in  this  stirring,  pushing, 
pressing  life  of  the  Eepublic,  he  alone  enters 
fully  into  the  spirit  of  obedience  who  throws 
himself  joyfully  and  earnestly  forward  in  the 
effort  to  do  all  that  the  nation  calls  for,  and 


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AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


also  to  secure  like  action  from  others.  The 
letter  killeth  but  the  spirit  giveth  life.’’  One’s 
own  attitude  toward  the  law  is  one  thing.  His 
efforts  to  bring  others  into  the  same  attitude 
another  and  equally  important.  He  must  ever¬ 
more  lift  up  the  law  as  something  sacred,  not 
to  he  thrown  down  and  trampled  in  the  dust 
by  any  one  or  any  party. 

So  I  pass  on  to  say  that  the  duty  upon  the 
part  of  every  one  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  nation 
arises  because,  in  the  first  place,  such  obedience 
insures  peace  and  order.  If  all  obeyed,  the 
criminal  courts,  now  so  busy,  would  find  their 
occupation,  like  Othello’s,  gone,  and  a  peace 
would  prevail  through  the  community — a 
peace  not  like  the  order  which  reigned  in  War¬ 
saw,  stifling  activities  and  indicating  stagna¬ 
tion  of  life,  but  a  peace  in  which  all  the  activ¬ 
ities  of  all  the  individuals  of  the  nation  would 
have  fullest  play. 

Obedience  is  a  duty  because,  in  the  second 
place,  in  this  government  by  the  people  all 
take  part  in  the  enactment  of  the  laws.  When 
many  individuals  engage  in  a  common  enter- 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


95 


prise  whose  particular  actions  are  to  be  settled 
by  the  judgment  of  the  majority,  it  is  the  part 
of  honor  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  such  ma¬ 
jority.  Surely  the  path  of  honor  in  such  a 
case  becomes  the  path  of  duty.  It  is  the  essence 
of  government  by  the  people  that  the  will  of 
the  majority  should  control,  and  no  man 
should  put  himself  in  a  position  of  defiance  to 
that  will  simply  because  he  does  not  concur  in 
the  views  of  the  majority.  But,  it  may  be  said, 
that  ofttimes  laws  are  unjust,  unwise,  and  op¬ 
erate  harshly  on  individuals.  Doubtless  that 
is  true,  but  General  Grant  never  said  a  wiser 
thing  than  when  he  declared  that  the  best  way 
to  treat  a  bad  law  was  to  enforce  it  strictly,  for 
then  its  odious  features  would  soon  arrest  at¬ 
tention,  and  the  considerate  judgment  of  the 
.majority  would  repeal  it. 

It  has  been  said  that  popular  government 
was  doomed  to  failure  because  of  the  bitterness 
growing  out  of  election  contests;  that  human 
nature  is  such  that  the  result  of  the  struggles 
at  the  polls  will  not  always  be  acquiesced  in  by 
the  defeated  party,  and  that  an  appeal  to  arms 


96 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


may  be  expected  from  those  there  beaten,  and 
that  when  once  snch  an  appeal  is  successful 
repetitions  will  follow,  until,  dismayed  and 
harassed  thereby,  the  community  gladly  takes 
refuge  in  a  strong  central  government  with  a 
continuous  executive.  All  social  and  business 
interests  will  prefer  even  “  a  man  on  horse¬ 
back  to  anarchy  and  confusion.  It  is  not  to 
be  gainsaid  that  the  experience  of  many  so- 
called  republican  governments  furnish  support 
to  this  contention.  Revolutions  follow  one  an¬ 
other  in  some  of  our  South  American  States 
with  almost  the  frequency  of  elections,  and 
with  far  greater  regularity  than  earthquakes 
and  volcanic  eruptions.  A  friend  of  mine,  re¬ 
turning  the  other  day  from  one  of  those  States, 
told  me  that  while  there  he  spoke  to  some  gen¬ 
tlemen  about  the  frequency  of  revolutions,  and 
received  the  reply,  that  unlike  their  northern 
neighbors  they  had  neither  tennis,  nor  cricket, 
nor  golf  to  amuse  themselves  with,  and  must 
have  revolutions  for  their  fun. 

We  have  had  in  our  history  one  terrible  les¬ 
son,  a  lesson  which  will  not  soon  be  forgotten, 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


97 


and  which,  in  addition  to  other  matters,  was  a 
declaration  as  forceful  as  could  have  been 
made  that  this  people  will  fight  to  the  last 
before  they  will  permit  to  enter  into  our  polit¬ 
ical  life  the  idea  that  any  body  of  men  or  party 
can  appeal  from  the  ballot-box  to  the  musket. 
It  was  a  terrible  lesson,  but  perhaps  a  neces¬ 
sary  one,  and  now  obedience,  at  least  in  respect 
to  the  action  of  parties  and  sections,  to  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  is  something  which, 
so  far  as  human  foresight  can  determine,  is  in 
this  nation  to  stay.  We  have  since  had  election 
contests  full  of  bitterness,  contests  in  which 
the  defeated  party  felt  that  it  had  been  fraud¬ 
ulently  deprived  of  a  victory  to  which  it  was 
entitled  by  the  popular  vote.  But  while  for  a 
time  passions  raged  with  utmost  violence,  the 
one  great  lesson  of  the  past  was  heeded,  and 
rather  than  enter  upon  the  bitter  experience  of 
revolution  the  defeated  party,  although  smart¬ 
ing  under  the  conviction  that  the  fruits  of 
victory  had  been  stolen  from  it,  was  content 
to  wait  for  a  new  election.  To  say  that  the 
acceptance  of  the  results  of  an  election  is  a 


98 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


duty  resting  upon  all  is  simply  another  way 
of  afiBrming  the  duty  of  obedience  to  the  laws 
and  the  government.  One  of  the  imposing 
spectacles  of  our  national  life  is  the  vision  of 
the  cheerfulness  with  which  the  great  body  of 
our  people  generally  accept  the  result  of  an 
election.  As  Senator  Daniels  said,  in  his  ad¬ 
dress  at  the  Capital  Centennial  the  other  day, 

the  political  clocks  of  both  parties  strike  the 
same  hours;  after  election.” 

While  I  do  not  look  for  trouble  in  the  way 
of  attempted  revolution,  there  is  a  form  of  dis¬ 
obedience  to  constituted  authority  which  is  be¬ 
coming  unfortunately  too  prevalent  and  which 
is  freighted  with  danger.  I  refer  to  those  dis¬ 
turbances  which  attend  what  are  commonly 
known  as  strikes. 

As  I  have  heretofore  pointed  out,  obedience 
in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term  is  an  active 
virtue.  It  calls  not  alone  for  personal  conduct, 
but  also  for  active  effort  to  make  obedience  the 
universal  rule.  Industrial  combination  is  a 
fact  of  to-day;  large  manufacturing  and  trans¬ 
portation  enterprises  on  the  one  hand,  with 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


99 


great  bodies  of  employees  on  the  other.  Com- 
bination  and  organization  exist  on  both  sides. 
Our  constitutional  guarantee  of  equality  gives 
to  either  party  the  right  to  terminate  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  employer  and  employe.  It  is  true  that 
if  such  termination  involves  a  breach  of  con¬ 
tract  an  action  for  damages  will  lie,  which  may 
be  something  of  value  against  the  employer 
and  not  much  against  the  employee.  But  the 
termination  of  that  relation,  whether  involving 
breach  of  contract  or  not,  carries  with  it  no 
right  of  coercion.  No  matter  what  injury  to 
the  employer,  or  disturbance  of  his  interests, 
or  inconvenience  to  the  public  the  summary 
stopping  of  work  by  the  employees  singly  or  in 
mass  may  produce,  the  law  does  not  attempt 
to  compel  them  to  work.  An  equality  of  right 
is  possessed  by  the  employer.  He  may  termi¬ 
nate  the  relation  of  employer  and  employee, 
and  the  law  will  not  compel  him  to  reinstate 
it.  If  there  be  a  breach  of  contract  he  may 
suffer  in  an  action  of  damages,  but  the  law 
does  not  forcibly  re-establish  the  relation.  As 
the  employees  may  act  in  a  body,  so  the  em- 


100 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


ployers  may  act,  and  so  may  they  treat  them  as 
a  body.  I  am  dealing  now  with  the  legal  rights 
of  the  two  parties.  I  take  no  notice  of  condi¬ 
tions  which  may  exist  if  compulsory  arbitra¬ 
tion  ever  becomes  a  feature  of  our  law.  There 
may  then  possibly  be  coercion.  Neither  do  I 
stop  to  take  notice  of  that  pressure  which 
comes  from  public  sentiment  and  which  often 
and  justly  influences  one  or  both  parties  to 
seek  to  re-establish  the  relation  j  nor  even  of 
those  ethical  principles  which  ought  to  influ¬ 
ence  us  all,  and  which  doubtless  in  the  days 
to  come  may  be  more  and  more  incorporated 
into  positive  law.  I  am  dealing,  as  I  said, 
simply  with  present  legal  relations,  and  the 
obligations  of  obedience  to  the  laws  which  go 
hand  in  hand  with  those  relations. 

While  many  of  these  strikes  are  settled 
peacefully,  yet  it  is  a  sad  fact  in  respect  to  not 
a  few  that  they  are  attended  by  violence,  colli¬ 
sion,  destruction  of  property,  and  sometimes  of 
life.  It  may  be  true  that  in  many  instances 
the  violence  and  destruction  are  not  the  work 
of  the  strikers  themselves,  but  of  mere  sympa- 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


101 


thizers,  or  even  of  the  mob  of  the  idle  and 
vicious  who  are  sure  to  congregate  where  there 
is  a  prospect  of  trouble.  But  he  who  calls  a 
mob  into  being  cannot  be  pronounced  wholly 
guiltless  of  that  which  the  mob  may  do. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  inquire  which  in  any 
given  case  is  primarily  the  most  responsible, 
the  employer  or  the  employee.  What  I  wish  to 
emphasize  is  that  these  collisions  involve  a 
matter  of  disobedience.  It  is  one  thing  to 
exercise  a  right  which  the  law  gives,  and  in 
the  exercise  of  that  right  an  individual  or  a 
combination  is  entitled  to  the  fullest  protec¬ 
tion;  but  it  is  an  entirely  different  thing  for 
one  party  to  endeavor  to  prevent  another  from 
exercising  an  equal  right  under  the  law.  It 
makes  little  difference  whether  the  attempted 
coercion  is  by  force  or  intimidation.  In  either 
case  it  is  an  effort  not  to  change  but  to  break 
the  law.  In  either  it  is  a  matter  of  disobedi¬ 
ence  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term.  It  may 
be  wise  that  all  who  are  engaged  in  pursu¬ 
ing  the  same  avocation  should  be  organized 
into  one  body,  but  whether  they  should  be  so 


102 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


organized  or  not  depends,  as  the  law  now 
stands,  solely  on  voluntary  action,  and  to  at¬ 
tempt  to  deny  a  laborer  his  right  to  work, 
whether  he  be  within  or  without  an  organiza¬ 
tion,  or  to  deprive  him  of  full  protection  in 
that  work,  implies  a  plain  disregard  of  the 
mandates  of  the  law.  If  it  be,  as  a  matter  of 
political  economy,  wise  that  there  should  be  a 
consolidation  of  all  employees  into  one  or  more 
organizations,  and  that  no  one  should  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  work  except  he  be  a  member  of  such 
organizations,  let  the  law  makers  so  enact,  and 
whenever  a  constitutional  enactment  to  that 
effect  is  passed,  then  every  good  citizen  should 
strive  to  enforce  it.  But  until  such  enactment 
there  is  no  justifiable  excuse  for  attempting  by 
any  form  of  coercion  or  intimidation  to  de¬ 
prive  one  of  his  liberty  in  respect  to  labor,  a 
liberty  included  within  what  our  fathers  de¬ 
clared  to  be  inalienable  rights,  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.^’ 

Another  matter  which  illustrates  both  the 
spirit  and  result  of  disobedience,  and  which  is 
a  blot  on  our  national  life,  is  the  frequency  of 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


103 


lynch,  law.  It  used  to  be  said  that  it  was  an 
experience  of  the  frontier^  in  communities 
which  had  not  become  fully  organized  and 
where  the  forces  of  the  law  were  not  yet  in  suc¬ 
cessful  operation.  But  now  it  may  almost  be  re¬ 
garded  as  a  habit  of  the  American  people. 
Scarcely  a  day  passes  that  the  people  of  some 
community  have  not,  as  it  is  said,  taken  the 
law  into  their  own  hands.  The  time  was  when 
these  acts  were  so  rare,  and  coming  only  under 
conditions  of  terrible  excitement  and  atrocious 
crime,  that  they  startled  us.  They  were  called 
thunder-storms,  and  it  was  claimed  in  their 
justification  that  like  thunder-storms  they 
cleared  the  air.  But  now  they  are  so  common 
that  we  pay  little  attention  to  them,  and  look 
upon  them  as  almost  a  matter  of  course.  It  is 
a  convenient,  inexpensive,  and  expeditious  way 
of  putting  some  worthless  scoundrel  out  of  the 
world,  and  the  fact  that  there  is  an  occasional 
mistake  as  to  the  real  criminal  seems  to  operate 
in  no  way  to  deter  from  similar  actions  and  on 

slight  provocation. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  there  is  not  in 


104 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


the  administration  of  the  law  that  which  may 
be  stated  by  way  of  palliation.  It  seems  some¬ 
times  as  though  legislation  was  conceived  in 
the  spirit  of  obstruction  to  the  punishment  of 
criminals  and  of  indefinite  postponement 
thereof  by  appeal,  writ  of  error,  and  habeas 
corpus.  Appellate  courts  have  a  wonderfully 
quick  eye  for  detecting  fine  technical  errors  in 
criminal  proceedings,  and  back  of  all  stands  a 
tender-hearted  Executive  responding  to  the  ap¬ 
peals  of  relatives  and  friends  of  the  criminal. 
It  is  not  therefore  altogether  wonderful  that 
an  indignant  community  will  take  no  chances 
but  summarily  inflicts  the  punishment  the  ac¬ 
cused  deserves.  But  we  must  rise  to  a  higher 
plane  or  the  peace  and  order  as  well  as  the 
good  name  of  society  will  suffer  sad  shatter. 
We  shall  rise  to  such  higher  plane  only  when 
the  moral  sense  of  the  community  is  aroused 
to  the  enormity  of  such  transactions.  It  is 
useless  to  scold  legislators  or  lawyers  or  judges 
or  executives.  They  will  never  be  any  better 
than  the  popular  sentiment  which  is  back  of 
them.  When  that  public  sentiment  is  aroused 


OBLIGATION  OF  OBEDIENCE 


105 


so  as  to  feel  that  the  safety  of  the  community 
demands  prompt,  stern,  unfaltering  prosecu¬ 
tion  of  criminals,  then  it  will  he  that  legisla¬ 
tion  will  cease  to  block  but  will  strive  to  facili¬ 
tate  ;  errors  will  be  less  obvious ;  executives  will 
be  firmer;  justice  will  be  done;  criminals  will 
be  punished,  and  lynch  law  will  be  forgotten. 
Disobedience  to  the  law  will  in  this  respect  be 
simply  a  matter  of  history. 

I  might  go  on  pointing  out  other  forms  of 
disobedience,  and  noting  the  varied  results 
which  fiow  therefrom,  but  perhaps  these  are 
enough.  And  the  conclusion  which  I  wish  to 
draw  is  the  duty  and  necessity  of  full,  hearty 
obedience  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  all  our 
laws.  Do  I  lay  too  much  stress  on  this?  Am 
I  failing  to  note  the  many  imperfections  which 
attend  our  laws  and  the  administration 
thereof?  By  no  means.  On  the  contrary,  I 
fully  appreciate  the  incongruities,  the  defects, 
the  imperfections.  But  there  is  no  danger  that 
obedience  will  tend  to  perpetuate  these  defects 
and  imperfections ;  that  the  masses  continually 
yielding  to  things  as  they  are  will  become  so 


106 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


used  to  them  as  neither  to  seek  nor  desire  im¬ 
provement.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  spirit 
of  the  age  is  against  contentment  and  acquies¬ 
cence.  It  challenges  everything.  It  is  volcanic 
and  iconoclastic,  and  there  is  more  likelihood 
of  overthrow  and  revolution.  We  are  in  a 
hurry.  We  cannot  wait  the  slow  processes  of 
growth  and  time.  Given  an  evil,  a  defect,  and 
we  must  strike  it  down,  even  if  with  it  go  many 
things  of  value.  Eapid  changes  are  the  order 
of  the  day,  and  there  is  far  more  danger  from 
the  rapidity  of  those  changes  than  from  any 
supine  acquiescence  in  things  as  they  are.  The 
obedience  of  the  American  is  not  cowardly.  It 
is  not  from  selfishness.  It  springs  from  a  con¬ 
viction  that  it  is  duty.  And  he  sees  as  the 
reward  of  duty  done  the  promise  of  a  better 
day  for  himself  and  his  dear  ones,  and  the 
sweet  assurance  that  the  nation,  of  which  he 
is  a  citizen,  in  whose  past  he  glories,  and  in 
whose  future  he  hopes,  will  thereby  be  made 
stronger  and  better  fitted  for  the  full  achieve¬ 
ment  of  its  glorious  mission  in  the  world. 


THE  DUTY  OF  STRIVING  TO 
BETTER  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


j 


i 


V 


THE  DUTY  OF  STRIVING  TO  BETTER  THE  LIFE  OF 

THE  NATION 

The  last  matter  which  I  wish  to  notice  is  one 
that  looks  forward:  The  duty  of  striving  for 
the  bettering  of  the  life  of  the  nation.  The 
famous  Scotch  preacher.  Dr.  Guthrie,  kept 
over  his  desk  these  words  declaratory  of  his 
purposes  in  life: 

For  the  cause  that  needs  assistance, 

For  the  wrong  that  needs  resistance, 

For  the  future  in  the  distance, 

And  the  good  that  I  may  do. 

To  every  citizen  comes  the  nation’s  call  in 
this  direction.  By  as  much  as  he  appreciates 
all  that  the  nation  is  to  him,  its  protection,  its 
helpfulness,  its  blessing;  by  as  much  as  he  re¬ 
alizes  that  his  own  possibilities  of  accomplish¬ 
ment  are  widened  and  strengthened,  and  that 

life  will  be  made  richer  to  his  children  and  his 

109 


4 


110 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


children’s  children  by  its  continued  growth  in 
all  the  higher  elements  of  national  being;  by 
so  much  should  he  listen  and  respond  to  its 
loud  call  to  so  order  his  life  and  work  that  all 
shall  tend  to  the  bettering  of  its  life. 

Too  many  seem  to  feel  that  their  duty  to  the 
nation  is  a  qualified  and  limited  one;  that  a 
negative  obligation  is  all  really  resting  upon 
them;  that  so  long  as  they  do  not  hurt  the 
national  life  they  are  called  upon  for  nothing 
more.  Whatever  they  may  do  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  personal  character,  or  in  the  discharge 
of  social  and  political  duties,  is  done  without 
any  appreciation  of  its  effect  upon  the  national 
life.  It  is  enough  for  them,  so  far  as  the 
Eepublic  is  concerned,  that  they  do  not  disobey 
its  laws ;  that  when  called  upon  they  render  the 
personal  services  demanded,  and  that  their 
characters  and  the  habits  and  conduct  spring¬ 
ing  therefrom  are  such  as  to  keep  them  out  of 
the  police  court.  To  them  patriotism  as  an 
active  virtue  means  nothing  except  in  time  of 
war,  and  not  too  much  then.  In  peace  a  mere 
sluggish  acquiescence  in  what  is  being  done 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


111 


suffices.  It  never  enters  into  their  contempla¬ 
tion  that  the  growing  well-being  of  the  country 
depends  at  all  upon  their  personal  efforts.  In 
an  easy  way  they  turn  over  to  others  the  full 
responsibility  for  the  future.  They  know  noth¬ 
ing  of  that  magnificent  thing  called  public 
spirit.  They  are  content  to  take  what  comes, 
and  doing  nothing  very  discreditable  are  wont 
to  believe  that  they  are  numbered  among  the 
good  citizens.  Like  the  servant  mentioned  in 
the  parable  they  take  the  talent  given  them 
and,  burying  it  in  the  earth,  have  no  thought 
of  returning  it  with  interest. 

As  against  this  negative  view  of  duty  I  want 
to  appeal  for  positive  affirmative  vigorous  ac¬ 
tion.  The  poet  says: 

We  are  living,  we  are  dwelling, 

In  a  grand  and  awful  time  ; 

In  an  age  on  ages  telling ; 

To  be  living  is  sublime. 

The  thought  thus  expressed  I  wish  to  em¬ 
phasize,  and  emphasize  it  in  relation  to  the 
duties  of  every  one  of  its  citizens  to  the  great 
Kepublic.  I  want  to  appeal  to  the  moral  ele- 


112 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


ment  in  the  nature  of  every  student  in  this 
great  university.  I  want  to  lift  the  obligations 
of  citizenship  above  the  mere  question  of 
mathematics,  the  duty  of  giving  only  up  to  the 
amount  of  receiving.  I  want  as  best  I  can  to 
impress  upon  you  that  in  your  obligations  to 
this  nation  the  debtor  side  always  carries  a 
plus.  Whatever  of  comfort,  of  prestige,  of 
success,  of  glory,  may  attend  your  work  for  the 
nation,  and  whatever  else  may  pass  to  the 
credit  side  of  your  account,  the  debtor  side  is 
always  charged  with  a  larger  sum.  And  I  add 
that  the  greater  the  credit  side  proportionately 
increased  is  the  excess  of  the  debit  side.  If  in 
your  experiences  of  life  by  the  considerate 
judgment  of  your  fellows,  or  the  opportunities 
of  business,  you  are  lifted  into  positions  of 
power  and  usefulness,  the  very  fact  that  your 
credit  side  is  enlarged  above  that  of  the  ordi¬ 
nary  citizen  carries  with  it  notice  that  the 
debtor  side  has  increased  even  more  rapidly. 

If  this  nation  in  its  development  had 
reached  a  state  of  perfection,  or  one  near  it, 
you  might  well  say  that  the  obligations  resting 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


113 


upon  you  were  limited  to  the  duty  of  helping 
to  preserve  that  which  had  been  accomplished; 
but  unfortunately  whatever  we  may  say  about 
the  greatness  and  glory  of  our  nation,  how¬ 
ever  much  we  may  boast  of  what  it  has 
achieved,  we  all  know  that  when  we  place  its 
present  life  over  against  a  perfect  life  there  is 
an  unfortunate  failure.  National  ideals  are 
not  yet  with  us  national  facts.  We  see  a  glory 
to  be  accomplished  but  not  yet  realized.  We 
are  conscious  of  shortcomings,  defects,  delin¬ 
quencies,  which  we  hope  will  some  day  disap¬ 
pear.  As  each  individual  has  his  ideals,  which 
unfortunately  he  never  realizes,  so  each  one  of 
us  looks  upon  the  nation  and  sees  that  with  all 
it  has  done  and  accomplished  there  is  still  a 
vast  field  of  achievement. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  boastings  we  make 
of  the  grand  history  and  the  glorious  life  of 
this  Eepublic,  no  thoughtful  man  doubts  the 
magnitude  of  the  work  before  us.  There  runs 
through  the  present  life  of  the  nation  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  imperfections  and  shadows.  The  na¬ 
tional  life  is  not  perfect.  Society  as  it  exists 


114 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


to-day  has  many  dark  places.  We  are  still  far 
from  the. Millennial  day.  I  may  not  notice  all, 
and  yet  these  stand  out  in  bold  relief :  There  is 
undoubtedly  corruption  in  political  life — per¬ 
haps  not  all  that  some  despondent  persons  as¬ 
sert,  but  still  there  is  a  commercialism  in  poli¬ 
tics  which  no  thoughtful  man  can  be  ignorant 
of.  The  equal  voice  of  the  voters  is  not  yet 
secured,  and  that  irrespective  of  the  matter  of 
intimidation.  A  great  many  do  not  cast  their 
votes  in  accordance  with  their  independent 
honest  judgment.  Influences  more  or  less  cor¬ 
rupt  are  potent.  Notwithstanding  all  our  edu¬ 
cational  privileges,  our  common  schools,  and 
the  great  work  they  are  doing  (and  I  have  not 
the  slightest  desire  to  minimize  the  extent  of 
their  work)  there  is  a  fearful  volume  of  igno¬ 
rance.  More  than  that,  there  is  in  our  popu¬ 
lation  a  heterogeneous  mass.  We  are  not  all 
Anglo-Saxon.  We  do  not  all  spring  from  those 
races  which  have  true  ideas  of  self-govern¬ 
ment.  We  have  a  great  multitude  coming  from 
those  nations  in  which  government  is  a  sup¬ 
posed  enemy,  a  multitude  which  has  no  idea 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


115 


of  the  meaning  of  liberty  restrained  by  law. 
It  has  yet  to  be  Americanized,  to  be  brought 
into  a  realization  of  the  limitations  upon  per¬ 
sonal  action  which  come  from  the  highest  ob¬ 
ligations  of  liberty.  More  than  that,  we  have, 
notwithstanding  our  enormous  resources  and 
great  territory,  a  large  population  who  know 
nothing  of  the  blessing  of  a  home,  and  the  pure 
surroundings  which  attach  thereto. 

Surely  in  this  meagre  picture  of  the  life  and 
needs  of  the  nation  there  is  an  appeal  to  every 
kingly  soul.  In  feudal  times  it  was  the  boast 
of  the  knight  that  no  appeal  from  the  weaker 
sex  went  unheeded.  Those  times  have  been 
called,  and  not  improperly,  the  age  of  chivalry. 
I  want  to  revive  something  of  the  spirit  of  that 
age,  in  the  knightly  devotion  of  each  of  our 
citizens  to  the  Eepublic.  The  story  of  Eichard 
Coeur  de  Lion  will  to  the  end  of  time  move 
every  soul,  and  it  is  well  that  it  does  so.  Ideals 
of  heroism,  persistence,  and  devotion  should 
ever  be  held  before  the  eyes  of  the  young,  and 
not  be  put  one  side  as  no  part  of  the  practical 
life  of  to-day.  On  the  contrary,  there  never 


116  '  '  "  AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 

has  been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  world 
when  ideals  towering  above  the  mere  struggle 
for  pecuniary  personal  reward  were  of  more 
importance. 

Men  take  the  pure  ideals  of  their  souls 
And  lock  them  fast  away, 

And  never  dream  that  things  so  beautiful 
Are  fit  for  every  day  I 
So  counterfeits  pass  current  in  their  lives, 

And  stones  they  use  for  bread, 

And  starvingly  and  fearfully  they  walk 
Through  life  among  the  dead. 

Though  never  yet  was  pure  ideal 
Too  fair  for  them  to  make  their  Real. 


The  thoughts  of  beauty  dawning  on  the  soul 
Are  glorious  heaven-gleams, 

And  God’s  eternal  truth  lies  folded  deep 
In  all  man’s  lofty  dreams  ; 

In  thoughts  still  world,  some  brother-tie  which 
bound 

The  Planets,  Kepler  saw. 

And  through  long  years  he  searched  the  spheres, 
and  there 

He  found  the  answering  law. 

Men  said  he  sought  a  wild  ideal. 

The  stars  made  answer,  “  it  is  Real  I  ” 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


117 


Aye,  Daniel,  Howard,  all  the  crowned  ones 
That,  star-like,  gleam  through  time, 

Lived  boldly  out  before  the  clear-eyed  sun, 

Their  inmost  thoughts  sublime  I 
Those  truths,  to  them  more  beautiful  than  day, 
They  knew  would  quicken  men  ; 

And  deeds  befitting  the  millennial  truths 
They  dared  to  practise  then, 

Till  they  who  mocked  the  young  ideal 
In  meekness  owned  it  was  the  Real. 

Thine  early  dreams,  which  came  like  ‘  ‘  shapes  of 
light,” 

Came  bearing  Prophesy  ; 

And  nature’s  tongues,  from  leaves  to  “ ’quiring 
-  stars,  ’  ’ 

Teach  loving  faith  to  Thee  ; 

Fear  not  to  build  thine  eyrie  in  the  heights 
Where  golden  splendors  play  ; 

And  trust  thyself  unto  thine  inmost  soul 
In  simple  faith  alway  ; 

And  God  will  make  divinely  Real 
The  highest  forms  of  thine  Ideal. 

In  the  presence  of  these  ideals  the  question 
comes  to  every  young  man,  what  is  your  pur¬ 
pose  in  life?  Do  you  look  forward  to  it  in  the 
hope  of  honor,  wealth  or  pleasure,  or  are  you 
stirred  through  and  through  with  the  thought 


118 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


that  life  means  to  you  possibilities  of  useful¬ 
ness  and  service  ?  Are  you  ambitious  ?  I  hope 
so,  notwithstanding  Cardinal  Wolsey^s  words 
to  his  protege,  ''  Cromwell,  I  charge  thee  fling 
away  ambition.  By  that  sin  fell  the  angels.^^ 
I  agree  that  ambition  which  is  purely  personal, 
whose  boundaries  are  self  and  pleasure,  is 
something  calling  for  no  laudation  or  approval. 
But  an  ambition  not  so  circumscribed,  but 
which  has  the  idea  of  usefulness — and  it  may 
be  of  a  name  connected  with  that  usefulness— 
an  ambition  which  looks  to  achievement  for 
others,  is  one  worthy  of  all  commendation.  It 
IS  one  which  stirs  the  individual  to  loftiest 
deeds  and  noblest  living.  I  have  little  respect 
for  one  who  has  no  ideals  in  life^  for  one  who 
measures  the  whole  purpose  and  scope  of  his 
existence  by  the  loaf  and  the  dollar.  Such  a 
one  may  have  all  the  negative  qualiflcations  of 
a  citizen.  He  may  never  antagonize  the  course 
of  things  prescribed  by  the  law.  He  may  never 
fail  in  obedience  to  the  letter  of  the  statute  or 
in  response  to  any  demand  for  personal  service, 
and  yet  he  may  go  through  life  possessed  of  a 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION  119 

character  which^  though  destitute  of  positive 
vices,  is  equally  wanting  in  positive  virtues. 
He  stands  a  type  of  those  mentioned  in  the 
Eevelations  as  members  of  the  Church  of 
Laodicea .  Thou  art  neither  cold  nor  hot.  I 
would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot.  So  then  because 
thou  art  lukewarm  and  neither  cold  nor  hot  I 
will  spew  thee  out  of  my  mouth."" 

Among  the  ideals  filling  the  aspiring  soul  of 
every  citizen  of  these  United  States  should  be 
the  ideal  nation.  Neither  himself  nor  his  fam- 
ily,  his  friends,  the  community  in  which  he 
lives,  nor  even  the  single  State  of  which  he  is 
primarily  a  citizen  should  fill  the  measure  of 
his  thoughts  and  labors— but  the  great  Eepub- 
lic,  of  which  both  himself  and  his  family, 
friends,  community  and  State  are  but  parts, 
should  ever  rise  like  Mont  Blanc  among  the 
Alps,  the  supreme  object  of  devotion  and  toil. 

I  do  not  mean  that  every  one  should  look 
forward  with  the  purpose  or  expectation  of 
being  a  statesman  and  holding  office,  of  becom¬ 
ing  a  politician  of  the  respectable  kind,  or  even 
the  favored  recipient  of  a  newspaper  para- 


120 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


graph.  But  I  do  mean  that  one  clear  purpose 
of  every  life  should  be  to  help  in  making  the 
nation  better.  It  should  be  a  distinct  object  in 
life;  something  which  the  individual  aims  to 
accomplish;,  and  not  something  which  may 
come  as  a  mere  incident  to  other  efforts  and 
purposes.  We  must  live  with  the  idea  that  we 
have  a  solemn  duty  to  this  Eepublic;  that  we 
are  its  large  debtors,  and  that  the  only  limit  to 
our  obligation  is  our  capacity  to  help  in  lift¬ 
ing  its  life  to  a  higher  and  nobler  plane. 

To  carry  such  a  purpose  into  effect  we  must 
have  both  courage  and  candor.  The  question 
which  each  must  ask  is  not,  how  can  I  become 
most  popular,  but  how  can  I  do  the  most  good  ? 
We  often  hear  the  sentiment:  our  country, 
right  or  wrong.  A  higher  thought  is:  our 
country,  let  us  make  it  always  right.  Times 
may  come  in  which  we  have  to  stand  by  our 
country,  even  though  we  do  not  fully  agree 
with  what  it  is  doing.  In  case  of  a  war,  and 
one  even  which  our  judgment  does  not  ap¬ 
prove,  we  cannot  ally  ourselves  with  the  enemy. 
We  cannot  afford  to  be  traitors.  We  may  be 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


121 


compelled  to  serve  as  its  soldiers  and  help  it  in 
its  effort  to  victory.  And  yet  we  can  always  be 
numbered  among  those  who  demand  that  the 
nation  shall  only  engage  in  righteous  war ; 
that  no  matter  of  hate  or  revenge,  no  thought 
of  territorial  acquisition  or  eagerness  to  display 
our  power  before  the  world  shall  ever  lead  us 
into  a  bloody  conflict  with  our  neighbors.  We 
can  also  ever  demand  that  the  end  of  every  war 
shall  he  a  righteous  and  just  peace.  This  na¬ 
tion  must  not  appear  before  the  world  as  a 
highwayman.  Stand  and  deliver  must  never 
be  the  motto  of  the  Eepublic.  Victory  must  be 
seasoned  with  justice.  If  the  purpose  of  the  war 
be  accomplished,  the  end  should  promptly  and 
rightfully  come;  and  the  greater  our  power, 
the  greater  our  victory,  the  higher  is  our  obli¬ 
gation  to  do  justice.  Noblesse  oblige  is  a  rule 
for  nations  as  for  individuals.  And  that  na¬ 
tion  as  that  individual  stands  highest  in  the 
world’s  thought,  becomes  most  potent  for  good, 
which  in  the  hour  of  triumph  manifests  the 
most  consideration  and  magnanimity. 

I  know  that  we  are  sometimes  hampered  by 


122 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


party  organizations.  A  fundamental  fact,  a 
necessity  in  the  life  of  a  government  by  the 
people  is  organization  into  parties  of  those  who 
agree  upon  certain  lines  of  conduct.  As  indi¬ 
vidual  members  of  a  party  we  cannot  dictate 
its  policy  in  all  things.  It  may  be  duty  to 
choose  between  two  parties,  each  of  which  does 
some  things  which  do  not  accord  with  our 
judgment.  It  may  be  a  choice  between  two 
evils;  and  this  sometimes  where  matters  of 
gravest  importance  are  involved.  A  notable 
instance  is  found  in  the  recent  campaign.  Ke- 
publicans,  like  Senator  Hoar,  though  strongly 
opposed  to  the  attitude  of  the  present  Kepub- 
lican  Administration  in  respect  to  the  Philip¬ 
pine  Islands,  earnestly  supported  its  continu¬ 
ance  in  power  because  they  believed  greater 
evils  would  result  from  the  success  of  Mr. 
Bryan.  Others,  like  Governor  Boutwell,  pur¬ 
sued  an  opposite  course.  Ho  one  can  doubt 
the  sincerity,  the  patriotism,  the  devotion  to 
duty  of  either.  They  agreed  on  one  thing. 
They  differed  as  to  the  remedy.  So  will  it 
often  be  with  the  most  conscientious  men. 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


123 


Lecky,  the  historian,  speaking  of  a  similar 
situation  in  the  English  Parliament,  says: 

Every  one  who  is  actively  engaged  in  poli¬ 
tics — every  one  especially  who  is  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons — must  soon  learn  that 
if  the  absolute  independence  of  individual 
judgment  were  pushed  to  its  extreme,  political 
anarchy  would  ensue.  The  complete  concur¬ 
rence  of  a  large  number  of  independent  judg¬ 
ments  in  a  complicated  measure  is  impossible. 
If  party  government  is  to  be  carried  on,  there 
must  be,  both  in  the  Cabinet  and  in  Parlia¬ 
ment,  perpetual  compromise.  The  first  condi¬ 
tion  of  its  success  is  that  the  Government 
should  have  a  stable,  permanent,  disciplined 
support  behind  it,  and  in  order  that  this  should 
be  obtained  the  individual  member  must,  in 
most  cases,  vote  with  his  party.  Sometimes  he 
must  support  a  measure  which  he  knows  to  be 
bad,  because  its  rejection  would  involve  a 
change  of  government  which  he  believes  would 
be  a  still  greater  evil  than  its  acceptance,  and 
in  order  to  prevent  this  evil  he  may  have  to 


124 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


vote  a  direct  negative  to  some  resolution  con¬ 
taining  a  statement  which  he  believes  to  be 
true.  At  the  same  time^  if  he  is  an  honest  man, 
he  will  not  be  a  mere  slave  of  party.  Some¬ 
times  a  question  arises  which  he  considers  so 
supremely  important  that  he  will  break  away 
from  his  party  and  endeavor  at  all  hazards  to 
carry  or  to  defeat  it.” 

As  Lecky  suggests  in  this  last  sentence,  there 
are  times  when  one  must  rightfully  break  away 
from  party,  and  either  join  the  opposition  or 
aid  in  the  formation  of  a  third  party.  This, 
although  inconsiderable  in  numbers,  may  be  a 
protest  challenging  attention  and  resulting  in 
great  good.  Ordinarily  it  is  better  to  work 
within  a  party  than  against  it,  though  there  are 
exceptions  to  the  rule.  For  years  the  Abolition¬ 
ists  were  an  insignificant  handful,  and  yet  their 
separate  action  was  a  constant  protest,  which 
prevented  the  question  of  slavery  from  being 
ignored,  and  which  in  the  end  led  to  its  over¬ 
throw.  Like  John  the  Baptist,  they  were  ridi¬ 
culed,  condemned,  pictured  as  clothed  with 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


125 


camel’s  hair  and  a  girdle  about  the  waist,  but, 
like  John  the  Baptist,  they  were  a  voice  in  the 
wilderness.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
the  same  result  would  have  followed  had  they 
retained  their  relations  to  either  of  the  great 
parties  of  the  day. 

So  to-day  the  Prohibition  party  is  a  constant 
protest.  We  may  think  its  policy  unwise;  that 
its  action  tends  more  to  continue  than  to  over¬ 
throw  the  liquor  traffic.  Whatever  we  may 
think  of  the  effect  of  its  action  in  temporary 
results,  the  beautiful  motto  which  Frances 
Willard  bequeathed  as  her  legacy  to  the  world. 

For  God  and  home  and  native  land,”  is  like 
the  voice  of  the  Baptist,  ''repent  ye;  repent 
ye ;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  ” ; 
and  that  party’s  protest  and  unpractical  action 
may  yet  prove  the  forerunner  of  a  new  dispen¬ 
sation. 

The  constant  effort  of  the  individual  to  cre¬ 
ate  a  higher  thought  in  the  nation  will  surely 
find  large  results  in  its  life.  The  new  century 
finds  us  face  to  face  with  new  conditions.  We 
are,  whether  wisely  or  unwisely,  placed  in  con- 


126 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


tact  with  and  given  control  over  large  bodies 
of  comparatively  uncivilized  peoples.  Shall  we 
repeat  our  dealings  with  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  and  have  at  the  end  of  this  hundred 
years  a  second  edition  of  Century  of  Dis¬ 
honor,”  or  shall  justice,  honesty,  and  righteous¬ 
ness  illumine  all  our  association  with  them, 
and  thus  they  be  led  willingly,  joyfully,  into 
the  glorious  life  of  a  better  civilization? 

The  commercial  activity  of  this  nation  is  in¬ 
creasing  with  wonderful  rapidity.  No  lover  of 
his  country  cares  to  stay  that  activity.  Bather 
let  it  go  on,  and  in  its  peaceful  flow  bring  us 
into  intimate  relations  with  all  nations,  and  in 
that  growing  intercourse  give  increased  de¬ 
mand  and  greater  remuneration  for  our  prod¬ 
ucts,  industry,  and  inventive  skill.  It  is  pleas¬ 
ing  to  notice,  and  that  too  even  in  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  of  Congress,  the  indications  of  a 
growing  feeling  that  there  shall  be  a  moral  ele¬ 
ment  in  such  commercial  activity,  and  that  the 
best  development  of  our  commercial  supremacy 
excludes  from  its  scope  opium  and  rum.  Com¬ 
merce,  to  bless  us,  must  bless  the  nations  and 
the  peoples  with  whom  we  deal. 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


127 


Nineteen  centuries  ago  there  broke  upon  the 
startled  ears  of  Judea’s  shepherds  watching 
their  flocks  beside  the  village  of  Bethlehem  the 
only  angel’s  song  ever  heard  by  the  children  of 
earth : 

It  came  upon  the  midnight  clear, 

That  glorious  song  of  old, 

From  angels  bending  near  the  earth 
To  touch  their  harps  of  gold  : 

“  Peace  on  the  earth,  good-will  to  men 
From  heaven’s  all  gracious  king.” 

Though  nineteen  centuries  have  passed 
away,  still  the  war-song  is  sung,  the  war-drums 
speak,  and  the  prophetic  day  seems  far  off  in 
the  future.  But  the  day  will  come,  and  all  hail 
to  the  nation  and  the  men  who  strive  to  bring 
it  nearer.  While  our  national  life  has  not  been 
clear  it  may  truthfully  be  said  to  its  glory  that 
this  Kepublic  has  been  among  the  foremost  na¬ 
tions  to  speak  for  peace  and  to  plead  for  meli¬ 
oration  of  the  hardships  of  war  so  long  as  war 
shall  last.  One  of  the  flrst  treaties  we  made 
(the  Jay  treaty  of  ’94  with  England)  stipu¬ 
lated  for  protection  to  individuals  in  case  of 
war,  and  from  that  time  on  in  our  treaties  and 


128 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


negotiations  with  other  nations  we  have  con¬ 
stantly  striven  to  at  least  soften  its  hardships. 
We  have  entered  into  more  arbitration  arrange¬ 
ments  than  any  other  nation.  We  have  sought 
to  introduce  arbitration  into  the  life  of  the 
world.  We  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
Great  Britain  in  the  recent  Peace  Conference 
at  the  Hague,  the  most  urgent  for  those  stipu¬ 
lations  which  tend  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of 
war.  It  is  and  must  be  the  dream  of  the  future 
that  this  nation,  baptized  from  its  infancy 
into  the  gospel  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  should 
take  the  lead  in  all  efforts  in  that  direction.  It 
is  the  solemn  call  to  every  citizen,  and  espe¬ 
cially  to  the  young,  who  must  soon  bear  the 
burdens  of  national  life,  to  do  that  which  lies 
within  their  power  to  make  peace,  first,  the  law 
of  this  nation,  and,  second,  the  law  of  the 
world.  There  never  was  a  time  when  public 
opinion  was  more  potent.  And  if  the  accumu¬ 
lating  voice  of  public  opinion  within  this  Ke- 
public  shall  proclaim  its  adherence  to  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  peace,  other  nations  will  heed  and 
follow.  And  the  time  will  come — 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION 


129 


“  When  the  whole  world  gives  back  the  song 
Which  now  the  angels  sing.  ” 

Young  gentlemen,  you  are  the  sons  of  Yale. 
Doubtless,  the  handful  of  ministers  who  placed 
a  few  books  on  a  table  to  signify  the  beginning 
of  a  college,  did  not  foresee  how  during  the 
two  succeeding  centuries  their  venture  would 
grow  into  this  grand  university.  But  they  laid 
the  foundations  in  the  belief  that  during  all  its 
years  it  would  be  true  to  the  purposes  of  use¬ 
fulness  for  which  it  was  founded,  and  would 
fit  the  young  for  public  employment  in  church 
and  civil  state.  And  in  her  long  history  Yale 
has  never  proved  false  to  those  purposes.  Out 
from  these  halls  have  gone  a  mighty  multitude 
who,  scattered  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land,  have  done  noble  service  in  uplift¬ 
ing  the  life  of  both  church  and  state.  In  all 
departments  of  public  service  her  sons  have 
been  found,  and  before  their  eyes  have  glowed 
the  bright  ideals  of  a  better  life  in  the  nation. 
Ever  have  they  striven  to  take  the  great  nation¬ 
al  heritage  they  received  from  their  fathers, 
and  pass  it  on  to  their  children  a  nobler  heri- 


130 


AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


tage,  blessed  and  beautified  by  their  toils  and 
fidelity.  Their  blood  has  crimsoned  many  a 
field  of  battle,  as  they  died  for  liberty  and 
union.  In  the  councils  of  the  nation  they  have 

spoken  words  which  have  been  strong  for  truth 
and  righteousness.  They  have  sat  in  the  judi¬ 
cial  tribunals,  and  their  judgments  have  looked 
forward,  as  they  strove  to  make  plain  the  ways 
of  the  law.  In  all  departments  of  industrial 
and  commercial  activity  they  have  been  num¬ 
bered  among  the  leaders.  In  school  and  college 
and  university  they  have  passed  on  to  countless 
multitudes  the  learning  and  wisdom  gathered 
in  this  great  home  of  knowledge.  From  the 
pulpit  they  have  spoken  words  of  comfort  and 
hope,  and  striven  in  ten  thousand  ways  to  make 
life  sweeter  because  purer. 

In  the  shadow  of  the  achievements  of  these 
who  have  gone  before  you,  in  the  presence  of  all 
the  precious  memories  of  the  past,  you,  young 
gentlemen,  stand  to-day  facing  the  great  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  life  in  the  new  century.  Will  you 
be  recreant  to  the  past  of  old  Yale,  or  will  you 
stand  in  the  future  firm  for  all  those  things 


BETTER  LIFE  OF  THE  NATION  131 

which  make  for  the  better  life  of  the  nation? 
Will  you  go  on  in  your  various  walks  in  life 
ever  pleading  for  the  higher  things,  strong  for 
truth,  justice,  purity  and  righteousness,  and 
rejoicing  evermore  in  the  sweet  thought  that — 


Grand  and  hale  are  the  elms  of  Yale, 
Like  Angels  bending  o’er  you. 


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